George W. Bush in 2005 Gade was wounded in action twice and decorated for valor while serving as a
tank company commander in
Iraq. After Gade's second injury, his entire right leg was amputated. He was awarded the
Bronze Star and the
Legion of Merit. Gade has been a vocal critic of veterans' services and disability policies and equated the VA’s monthly payments to qualifying veterans as a system that rewards unemployment and disengagement. Rather, Gade advocates for a system that encourages self-reliance and vocational rehabilitation. He has authored a couple of scholarly articles in that field, most notably in
Health Economics and the
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. In 2013, he published an article in
National Affairs about disability benefits and their failure to achieve positive outcomes for disabled veterans. In 2013, Gade authored an article in
The Wall Street Journal arguing that disability claims in the
United States Department of Veterans Affairs backlog were due in large part to the agency's expansive definition of "disability". In 2021, Gade and Daniel Huang, a former
Wall Street Journal financial reporter, co-authored a policy review book,
Wounding Warriors: How Bad Policy Is Making Veterans Sicker and Poorer. Gade and Huang's book questioned the efficacy of existing disability services and posited that the VA “robs veterans of their vitality” and spawns a “culture of entitlement” among veterans and a pernicious “network of enablers.” Gade and Huang's book referred to veterans who served after 9/11 as “a generation that wants to be given everything even if they don’t deserve it.” The book also described veterans undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder as “wannabes” because they tell their therapists “stories that sound a lot like a bad day rather than a traumatic moment.” On October 29, 2025, Gade testified before a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that the VA system encourages veterans to be sick, that disability ratings have been misapplied and that "9 of the top 10 conditions for newly rated veterans are easily exaggerated or totally unverifiable." Gade has been involved in politics and served in the administration of President
George W. Bush. During this period, Gade had been appointed in 2015 to the
National Council on Disability by then Speaker
John Boehner. In 2017, Gade was nominated to become a member of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission In 2019, Gade formed an association with
American University's
School of Public Affairs as a
Professor of Practice. Governor-elect
Glenn Youngkin nominated Gade in 2022 to lead the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Veterans Services. Gade took office on January 4, 2022 and was confirmed to the position. In 2024, Gade vacated the position and became the Chief Executive Officer of his own government contracting business. Gade's business earns profits from contracts with a variety of Federal agencies including the
United States Department of Defense,
NASA, the
United States Department of Agriculture, the
United States Department of Homeland Security and the
National Security Agency. ==2020 U.S. Senate campaign==