Entitlement to service connection for a psychiatric disability, to include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is denied.

Board reasoning

The Board weighed the Veteran’s childhood traumas and documented service injuries, finding the childhood stressors more probative in establishing a current PTSD diagnosis. It found the claimed in-service stressors either lacking consistency or not meeting DSM-5 criteria, and concluded the weight of the evidence favored a nonservice-related origin, primarily childhood abuse and witnessing a cousin’s death. Credibility assessments supported rejecting reported in-service trauma as the source of PTSD, while granting probative value to medical opinions attributing PTSD to childhood trauma. The Board thus denied service connection after reviewing the record and contradicting the Veteran’s asserted causal links.