You talked about lowering the bar, and I'll give you a very good reason why you should have a lower bar for those who have served than for those who haven't.
The perfect example for me is the Gulf War and what people identify as the Gulf War syndrome. The Americans have spent millions of dollars trying to research what the Gulf War syndrome is, and they have no idea what it is. They accept that people who have Gulf War syndrome are sick, and they take care of them.
If you had a normal standard of proof for people who went to war, you would not be able to help people who had Gulf War syndrome because you could not identify an accident, a cause, and a consequence. So I think having a lower threshold for those who have served in an area of conflict is absolutely essential.