American Government: Shame, Disgrace, and Dishonor
I haven’t figured out “how” just yet, but this insanity must stop
By haystack Posted in Archived — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
SSG Gregory Wilson ENLISTED in the Army in 1970. Selecting the 82nd Airborne (at the age of 17) he attended Basic training at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, subsequently attending Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia, and serving honorably at Fort Bragg, Fort Bliss, with Special Forces (14 years) in Jackson, Mississippi, at Fort Irwin, California and Camp Darby Italy.
He would go on to serve in Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, and Operation Desert Fix. He served with Task Force 105 in the Honduras, Tour Retro-Europe in Germany, in Bosnia with the 345th RAOC, winding down his career with Company B 2nd Battalion 142nd Infantry, 56th Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 36 Infantry Division as part of the Texas Army National Guard stationed at Tallil Air Force base (AFB), Iraq, and landing back home on medical hold, at Fort Hood, TX.
After roughly two years in medical and service limbo at Hood, “Wilson” would find himself getting bounced back to his Guard Unit in North Texas, and ultimately forced out of the Military all together. Wilson’s medical treatment is incomplete, you see, and he is routinely having to defend himself to his case managers and the medical “system” we taxpayers have funded and allowed to fall into such bureaucracy, disarray, and decay.
Wilson has NO BENEFITS, no income, no retirement, a long painful medical support need he is currently not eligible for, and a disability borne of a 36 year distinguished Military career that leaves him sufficiently disabled for meaningful employment “on the outside.” Read Wilson’s own words, in one of his endless petitions for support and assistance. He does this on behalf of ALL service members…not JUST for himself:
These personnel have to defend themselves in front of a host of case managers and a medical board for injuries sustained in the line of duty for their country. I have been in the system for about 30 years now - Active, Guard and Reserves - and I have been in all kinds of units with numerous Military Specialties doing the physical labor that comes with those jobs, from digging fighting positions, to loading equipment on vehicles, in military storage vans, on and off vehicles, on aircraft and then unloading this same equipment with or without load bearing equipment such as lift trucks, hand trucks or dolly.
In time performing these tasks the body can only take so much wear and tear. The system has now started telling us that these injuries are everything from hereditary to “its all in your mind” or “you are faking the system and there is nothing wrong with you.”
Wilson continues, as you read this, TRYING to keep from losing his home and winding up on the streets with his wife and children; petitioning his local Congressman, his Senator, the Department of the Army, and the Veteran’s Administration continues to offer him no relief.
Why do I bring you Wilson’s story?
There are FAR too many stories just like his, caused by FAR too many zealous and ambitious Officers playing the numbers to speed up their climb through the ranks, and FAR too many politicians worried more about potential voting blocs and settling political scores.
This HAS to stop.
More below the fold…
In a piece I did here recently, I re-introduced the story of Bob Woodruff who had suffered horrific injuries in an explosion in Northern Baghdad in January 2006. He was given international notoriety, all the care our medical system could muster, and the love and prayers of an entire nation. For his suffering I am deeply sorry. For his apparent full recovery and ability to come fully back to his family, friends, and loved ones, and for his resiliency to be able to return to work, I can only thank God for yet another miracle.
But.
For every Bob Woodruff, there are countless Wilson’s fighting and struggling to recover from all manner of injury and ailment in the aftermath of doing a job they loved and believed in.
While there are activists and political opportunists out there railing against the circumstances under which these Military Heroes sustained their injuries, they nonetheless deserve better from us upon their return. Why does our Nation allow such abandonment of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines? I have racked my brain and can find no reasonable answer to that question.
Last night, ABC aired Woodruff's story: "To Iraq and Back", and did a fairly decent job of getting HIS story out, and sharing with us HIS newfound appreciation for both TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and the many Soldiers who suffer from TBI, while simultaneously giving us the sense that we are not sufficiently capable inside the Military Medical care machine to diagnose and treat this type of trauma.
In fact, I would offer that he (intentionally or otherwise) made Jim Nicholson look pretty pathetic. For those that don't know, Nicholson is our Cabinet level Bureaucrat aka Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and from what I gathered in Woodruff's piece, one sorry excuse for a bureaucrat in charge of caring for these men and women.
While it may be easy to pick one guy and blame him alone, this mess is by no means the result of a single one-man Herculean effort; Nicholson had LOTS of help. As Jack Jacobs rightly points out in the title to his MSNBC piece:
Congress shares blame for Walter Reed mess. Lawmakers should complain less and work more on oversight
And he goes on to suggest, quite articulately I might add:
But lost in all the invective is the fact that there is plenty of blame to go around, and among those who shoulder responsibility in this mess is Congress.
Although Rep. Nancy Pelosi has promised an investigation, and other elected officials have expressed their share of concern, there is, relatively speaking, a deafening paucity of vituperation from Capitol Hill. A clue lies in the congressional responsibility for oversight of the Defense Department’s activities.
While many senators and members of the House have visited Walter Reed, it took a reporter to bring the problem to light. There have been lots of highly publicized congressional visits to hospitals like Landstuhl in Germany, to which most wounded troops are first brought, and plenty of hand-wringing about the war when the legislators have been in front of cameras. But not a word about conditions at Walter Reed.
He is, of course, referring to the Dana Priest story in the Washington Post about the horrible conditions some of our recovering and recuperating wounded Soldiers are being forced to endure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC. This, of course, being the hospital our Political Heroes routinely visit, gathering photo-op fodder for their campaign websites, and for furthering political hack agendas such as the now infamous "slow bleed" of our Service Men and Women.
As much as the anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-(fill in your party du jour) crowd want to BLAME a party or a person, it is really "we the people that own this...perhaps not for causing it, but most assuredly for putting a stop to it and righting this ship of fools.
I don't have all the answers here, but I am looking for some. With all the entitlements we lavish on our "less privileged than others" members of this society, frankly, I place a higher value and priority on seeing to it that we take care of our Vets.
I am old enough to remember when our Viet Nam heroes came home. I remember seeing them spat upon. I grew up with those guys. I watched some of them drink or drug themselves to death. I knew or heard of others.
I remember how they felt about the way they were treated; the lack of respect, the lack of appreciation, and the total lack of understanding for what they suffered and endured in defense of our Country only to come home to that? Many moved on. Many couldn't hold on long enough to get the help they desperately needed. Many gave up waiting. Others still wait.
We can not do this again. Being against an American Government policy is our Democratic right. Killing and mentally maiming and destroying those involved with that with which some disagree must stop. And it must stop now.
Our Veterans deserve better than this. Our nation deserves better than this.
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American Government: Shame, Disgrace, and Dishonor 27 Comments (0 topical, 27 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
as I understand it from "sources" not as close as your friend, the Bldg. 18 stories are true. I would very much like to hear her analysis though.
We can agree that, even if SHE exaggerated, the stories such as Wilson's are true...and unacceptable..yes?
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
Because I've never heard it before, but until I hear otherwise I assume that it's true. Perhaps we should just get together a bipartisan group of Senators and Congresspeople to drive down to Building 18 and see for themselves. They can hop on planes to fly to Iraq, and yet it's puzzling to me that this seems to be going on right in their backyard, so to speak, and nobody has said anything to them about it until the media picked it up. So why don't they go, and put what they find in the Congressional Record? It's only a few miles away.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
And inspect the facilities themselves and be back before they have to vote on anything. On one of their days off, perhaps.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
Just like people used to do in elementary school. We could even suggest the kinds of buses they should ride in.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
Let me be clear: they're absolutely unacceptable especially considering that (believe it or not) in a war of this length we've suffered relatively few casualties overall. The problem is that our legislators want to maintain an antiseptic distance from the people right in their backyard, and at the same time use their stories for maximum political advantage while doing nothing to help them. It's a little sick, but that's Washington D.C.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
That I've been able to gather in my experience talking with my friend is that although people who are not veterans but largely politically-connected operatives enjoy talking about the troops and their service and how much they have to endure...
...virtually none of them show up to simple events to honor them or even get to know some of them personally. They receive invites as inside-the-beltway Washingtonians but for a variety of intellectually-convenient excuses never show up. And it's a surprisingly nonpartisan phenomenon -- as a matter of fact, probably fewer (D)s show up than (R)s because of unique combination of guilt for allowing the war to happen and also a political desire to distance themselves from any kind of fallout.
It's the returning veterans who lose. They're the ones coming back from the combat and frankly this society has absorbed many, many more veterans in the past without much strain. Even though the (total) numbers of wounded in Iraq seem fairly high, they're still less than the number of people killed each year in auto accidents in the United States.
The real lesson is that because of the partisanship, large swaths of people have an easy excuse for not getting involved: they don't want to be seen as either opponents or supporters of the war, in case it comes back to bite them. This extends to the smallest and the largest things, like providing free shuttle bus service to and from WRMC for our vets., which anyone would think would be a relatively inexpensive thing to do (and help the vets get out a little) but nobody thinks about that stuff.
One of the most important lessons to be learned about the treatment of our veterans in this war is the extent to which the partisan political environment is making them suffer, all talk on MSNBC about how much America has "matured" notwithstanding. The fact is that America has "matured" only in terms of its *speech* -- it's talk. We have Democrats who don't support the war but still want to say they support the troops, and we have Republicans who say they support both but actually don't, when it comes right down to it.
And in the middle are the returning soldiers who are going to be left behind because essentially they have been used up and cast out of the system. They're going to be very angry one day that all of the people in this country, from both parties, didn't put that partisanship aside to help them when they came home.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
on it Haystack. First, I have no reason to doubt that your example served honorably, was injured in that service, and is getting the shaft; I admit it happens in the world with which I'm familiar. I've never dealt with the military's injury and disablilty system, but have no reason to believe it is much different from Workers' Comp and Disablility Retirement systems common in all governments; governments don't tend to be unique or innovative.
Scamming Workers' Comp and Disablility Retirement is one of the biggest industries in the Country; whole law firms and medical practices exist just for the purpose, and there are expert witnesses under every rock and tree in the Country. There are large cohorts of people who go from state to state getting a job and keeping it just long enough to get "injured" or "disabled" on the job.
Frankly, any manager's reaction to any claimed injury where he can't see bone or blood is SCAM! In over 20 years of public sector HR/LR work, I could count on my fingers the number of legitmate claims I ever saw outside the realm of the legitimate, observed injury accident.
Deep tissue and neurological injuries are extraordinarily difficult to diagnose and prove. You can buy a doctor to testify to anything and an actuary to testify to any amount of damages. That's the game, and any manager is extraordinarily cynical about this stuff; the automatic NO comes easily and, frankly, is usually right. This does result in some legitimate claims getting the same treatment, and I'll admit that it isn't right or fair.
And the career military has no monopoly on virtue; 90% of the military is bureaucrats and support staff, not combat soldiers, and even the combat soldiers as they get older are likely to become bureaucrats - they get every one of the bureaucracy's bad habits.
I have no reason to believe that the military's medical system is any more efficient than any other large government bureaucracy, and it may well be that your example has gotten very, very bad treatment by the system. But I do understand why any management, even military management, looks askance at injury and disability claims and makes the claimant prove every jot and tittle.
Just as anecdotal evidence, one of the last labor arbitrations in which I served as the advocate was the claim of a State Trooper Recruit for Injury Leave, a paid absence of up to a year for an on-the-job injury. The Grievant was an ex-paratrooper who had somehow managed to hide the fact that he was receiving a service related disability for a back injury; he claimed Veteran's Preference, but somehow it wasn't picked up on the DD-214 that he was disabled. One may be permitted to wonder just how that happened, but I will admit that it could have been just incompetence by the person who reviewed his Veteran's Preference claim. He showed up at the Recruit Academy and managed within a few days to injure his back putting his duffle bag in the trunk of a car; the same back for which the military was already compensating him. Anyway, since Alaska's Workers' Comp Law doesn't exclude pre-existing injury, he got his paid year and ultimately another disability payment. It's good work if you can get it.
In Vino Veritas
and while I agree there is a great career in gaming the system, I think we agree that the bigger the system gets, the more hands in the till from the management side, the more rapidly your career can advance by keeping benefit hours and money down, the better the chace it can be gamed from BOTH sides.
Nonetheless, the Vets deserve a significantly larger amount of our efforts to try and improve the system...we owe them a whole lot more than what we give them now.
We haven't even broached the subject of the quality of some of the care providers in the VA system and whether there is as much incompetence or willful blindness to symptoms and complaints in the interests of cost cutting or workload reduction.
Repeat-we owe them more than this.
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
they deserve the very best we have. I have a kid in Afghanistan right now and I hope to God I never have to find out how the system really works.
In Vino Veritas
worker's comp. It is somewhat more difficult to scam because military controls the doctors who do the rating. OTOH, the rating system is simply a mystical, blue smoke and mirrors thing. And it takes forever, and then forever again.
My son got a medical discharge from the Marines after a training accident. He had a series of surgeries on both legs and was finally discharged after a year of rehab. Generally speaking, his care went this way. He was injured in a fall from a wet rock face, fell about 30 feet and landed in a tree root that messed up his legs. The Marines and Corpsmen on site did a fantastic job getting him evaced, at night, really foul weather, nasty terrain. Then things went to hell in a hand cart.
His treatment at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton was pathetic. I won't bore you with details, but bottom line he ended up with surgery he didn't need and most of his problems are the result of the surgery.
He currently has a 50% disability rating with both legs involved.
It took the VA nearly a year to get his rating squared away and he was pretty much in limbo the whole time. His care at the VA hospital - routine exams and stuff - since his discharge has been OK, but he hasn't needed any "real" help.
Bottom line, I'm not fan of the VA or "non-critical" care in Naval Hospitals.
____
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller
but his story is consistent with a LOT of the guys I have met with at Hood...including Wilson who I met personally and "interviewed" several time for parts of this piece.
This is crap, and needs to stop.
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
is that he's really not unable to do about any civilian job. He's working on a pretty demanding physical job now, he still runs several miles a day and he's in very good shape. He would likely have problems doing 30 miles with an 80# pack, a 26# machine gun and body armor, but as a civilian he's OK.
He'd have just been better had the navy not messed with him.
____
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller
also suffered a knee injury in a training accident while on a march at 29 Palms. His battalion was marching in the desert, he was humping the reciever of a .50 cal, and messed up his knee. He was less than impressed with the Navy Doctors at the hospital and the treatment, which, apparently consisted of take 2 asirin, and don't walk on it. Hardly valid medical advice for a Marine. He re-injured it again a few years later, and got treatment on Okinawa, which was much better, he said. It still clicks and rattles, but he's got less than 4 years to get his 20 in, hopefully. But I'm sure his knee will remind him when the weather is going to change and let him know he has the knee of a 65yr old at 38.
haystack. thank you for bringing this horrific treatment of our soldiers out. there are many, many more. they are not hard to find. just listen. they are all asking for help. not for anything that should not be happening for them already. decent quality care and a fair shake at the end. out of hundreds of soldiers that have come home inujured there will be the "few" that will want to "milk" the system, but they are very few.
this story is a valid story. he has written many and gotten less in return. if this continues, who will replace these soldiers when we need them here at home for homeland security. what i really want to know is who is going to do something about helping these soldiers. where is the bridge that is needed to talk these soldiers out of the military system and put them back into civilian society? dont expect that the va can do everything - they have been dumped on a military health care system that cant and doesnt take care of the injured they receive. there is no in-between. from what i am able to ascertain is that the soldiers are lost after they leave active duty. it is enough that they have to adjust to going home and "reintegrate into a family structure" that moved on without them. i am willing and able to assist in anyway that i can and often do, but its time for someone in washington to roll up there sleeves and come down to the table with better answers and a plan that will actually work. not just send regulations down and expect that they will actually be carried out by someone that didn't care in the first place.
It isn't supposed to be, but if you need any help understanding why nationalized medical care is a stupid idea, replace Wilson's name with your own and re-read his story.
Imagine how much this country can save on cancer care everyone needing treatment had to convince a "case manager" to authorize treatment before treatment could be obtained.
Support the Mission - Honor the troops
Exsolvo Orbis Terrarum
Re:Imagine how much this country can save on cancer care everyone needing treatment had to convince a "case manager" to authorize treatment before treatment could be obtained.
This is excatly how our system currently works. Almost every healthplan, public and private, has a system of precerts or authorizations which must be obtained first before expensive treament can begin. The people who do this work are however trained medical personnal, generally RNs (not acountants!) and sometimes, for complex cases, MDs.
It's very clear to me that unless they do, the Democrats are going to use the issue of the treatment of our returning veterans in every way imaginable in the next six months.
Even if it weren't a moral issue, it should be a political issue for them. And it's time they stopped getting caught flatfooted by the MSM.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
One more thing: if anyone would like to see the kinds of stories that are going to emerge in the MSM in the next two years if the Republicans do not treat this issue proactively, I invite them to take a look at the Hurricane Katrina coverage.
Because this issue is morphing very, very quickly into "son of Katrina" in terms of Republican incompetence and it is going to become a double-barreled attack once the hurricane season this year rolls around.
So get with it, people. Or you're going to walk a long time in the wilderness.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."
I guess the GOP hasn't been in control of all levers of government for the last 6 years.
Must be one of those KnownFacts.
Because, in point of fact, we actually weren't. Aren't, either, not that you'd know that from the Democrats wrt the war.
Anyway, such goofyness requires special attention. You can come back when you send via the Contact Us button your admission of which left-wing site you got that, indeed, KnownFact from. Idle curiousity: I just want to know who does your thinking for you.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
____
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller
Problems in the military hospitals and the VA date back at least 50 years. This is not a recent matter of incompetence, it's a matter of a huge and entrenched bureaucracy run amok.
The military does an exceptional job of traumatic care. They are second to no one. When it comes to small stuff and routine care, they are just socialized medicine. No worse, but no better than England, Canada or anywhere else in the world where bureaucrats run the show.
My son's experience with Naval hospitals was lousy. He did not go there with serious or life threatening injuries (relatively speaking). While he was waiting on his discharge, he worked as an aide with guys who were severely wounded. He said the care they got was fantastic. In the same hospital, BTW, that screwed around with his more minor injuries.
This is a problem that is neither R or D. It's institutional and it's a standard failure of government. A good start would be close down most VA hospitals and contract with the private sector for non-trauma services.
Your little comment really shows an incredible level of ignorance and stupidity. I'm just amazed.
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Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller
Ft. Benning it was simple at first just a groin pull however the medicine they put him on and kept him on for a month gave him 6 bleeding ulcers before they realized he had a problem he threw up a pint of blood, they cauterized the ulcers however something did not go right and he was throwing up blood in large amounts again, the scar tissue from the surgery was so bad he could not keep food down and lost 30lbs in 6 weeks. He was treated great at the beginning however to ensure that he would not recieve any future benefits they told him he could hang around for more then a year to get a medical discharge or he could get discharged via "mental" incapacity I talked to his sargent many times and advised him that there would be no way that would be on his record, they eventually after 3 months agreed to a medical "separation". He can sign back up after a year of separation however after the mental games they played with him he won't be. I also have my 18 year old who is going in the marines after graduation and I would like to see the process fixed in a way that young soldiers with no life experience can be "had" and believe me that is what would have occurred if I had not been more knowledgable. My family is still very much pro military however as for the bureaucrats we are still angry.
Peace through superior fire power:)
I knew SSG Wilson as I served in the same company and platoon at Ft. Hood Texas. I am now in the same fight, american bureaucracy of red tape, etc., and same arena. I am trying to keep myself from being stuck in the same shoes as he has been in. I am making my plea very vocally: in writing to anyone who will listen, out loud to the soldiers that are still here at Ft Hood Medical Retention Processing Unit. I am ashamed to say that I heard soldiers say things about how the military was screwing them or throwing them to the waste side and I didn't listen because I thought that America wouldn't let that happen to those of us who have served our country. Robert Gates stood up on CNN and stated that our soldiers shouldn't have to face this american bureaucracy and red tape and should be allowed to heal in the best environment possible, BUT that is not the reality of the situation.
I have been told that I am not allowed to have an opinion, not allowed to talk to the media, and could be punished to the fullest extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Still nobody takes our side or helps us with this battle - WHY?
I could never and will never EVER suggest anyone join the military ever again. I do not speak out about the Army for trivial resons, I do so because I am used and thrown away just like SSG Wilson. If I could say one thing to him it would be: Sorry for not listening and trying to help you then because what you (as well as numerous soldiers before, same time, and after have said) said was so accurate it hurts.
I challenge everyone to write their congressmen and women, to contact their state representatives, etc. Anyone they can think of because this healthcare system is hemorrhaging and bleeding out. Yes it is a system that is disabled and deplorable. Please help us change the system so that all of our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, or just plain friends end up caught in the same whirlpool here. PLEASE HELP THIS FIGHT IN ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN!!!!
Thanks to all of you who read this and hopefully act upon it.
I know someone who has been a volunteer at Walter Reed long before this story broke, and I would appreciate her take on whether or not the charges that Dana Priest raised in her piece in the WaPo were accurate.
"Violently anti-communist, and much more militaristic than the norm."