Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

[The Mad Monk]

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3.htm

Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor
By MARK BENJAMIN, UPI Investigations Editor

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi. "They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.

The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.

"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment.

A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not returned.

Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior to military service.

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.

They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick people.

"I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to Iraq and asked that his name not be used.

That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten steadily worse. He shakes uncontrollably.

He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax shots the Army gave him.

"They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly," he said. "I did not have a problem until I got those shots."

First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles. Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in 17 minutes at 48 years old.

But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus. He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him. Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there.

Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder block barracks. He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11. He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the Army Reserves.

"Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said.

Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

"The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six weeks ago with a serious back injury. He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he said.

Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in Iraq. "There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said. "Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said, gesturing to the bunks. "There are people here who got back in April but did not get their surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families."

The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of the backbone of the military.

"Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror," Bush said. "And you're making your state and your country proud."

-0-

Mark Benjamin can be contacted at mbenjamin@upi.com

I do hope some of those billions are going towards better medical care.

[Ted Striker]

what **** is this bullsh1t

veterans once again getting treated like sh1t

do what it takes to fix them back up

[Sikander]

I hated the reserves almost as much as I loved serving with the regular army. They have always gotten the short end of the stick. We used to never get paid unless we were on TDY with a regular army unit. It sucked.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Sikander
I hated the reserves almost as much as I loved serving with the regular army.

Ditto.

They have always gotten the short end of the stick. We used to never get paid unless we were on TDY with a regular army unit. It sucked.

Yeah, they always used to tell me come in and work these few days and they'd give me a paid weekend off six months down the line, the logic being they could only pay you for 2 days in any given month. Then when you asked about it six months later they'd ask you what the hell you were talking about.

They really know how to take care of weekend warriors.

[The Mad Monk]

So this is nothing new?

[Chemical Ollie]

What's this talk about "Support the troops"?

[Az]

What do you mean, you weren't paid for being in the reserves?

[The Mad Monk]

Drudge is on the warpath -- he's talking about it RIGHT NOW.

http://www.wabcradio.com/listenlive.asp

[GePap]

How dare you guys criticize the government and this administration! Traitarous dogs! The country simply can not afford your liberal spendthirft ways: belts must be tightened during these economic times!

Bunch of left-wing pinko commies!

[Odin]

More proof that Bush is a scumbag.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS YOUR JACKASS HYPOCRITE!!!

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Odin
More proof that Bush is a scumbag.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS YOUR JACKASS HYPOCRITE!!!

This is less the fault of the Bush administration and more a structural problem within the military itself. I did my whole term of service during the Clinton administration, and I'm sure things were no better or worse then.

The reserves simply keep piss-poor medical records to begin with compared to active duty services.

My own medical records were completely lost when I transferred from active duty to reserve status.

All these stories about reservists back from the war theater receiving poor medical aid, poor housing or poor food can almost completely be laid at the doorstep of the reserve command structure, who are either sending out bad paperwork and orders, or worse none at all.

The reserve officers are simply poorly trained, or completely inept, at taking care of their own people.

[Oerdin]

N\It's not just the reserve officers. There's a running joke in the reserves that only a dead man has an Army Doctor as his primary doctor. The only people who work as a military doctor are the people who can't make it in the civilain world, seriously. The percentage of military doctors who can no longer practice civilian medicine due to malpractice is very high. Many of them get fired or lose their insurence due to malpractice and their options are to either change vocations or become a military doctor and get 1/4 the pay.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
N\It's not just the reserve officers. There's a running joke in the reserves that only a dead man has an Army Doctor as his primary doctor. The only people who work as a military doctor are the people who can't make it in the civilain world, seriously. The percentage of military doctors who can no longer practice civilian medicine due to malpractice is very high. Many of them get fired or lose their insurence due to malpractice and their options are to either change vocations or become a military doctor and get 1/4 the pay.

No argument there.

[Oerdin]

When I was in Kosovo one of the fellows in my reserve unit cam down with a tooth ache and the "dentist" (I use the term losely) at Camp Bondsteel actually refused to help him because he was a reservist. One of our officers actially had to go down and complain to the dentist's CO before the soldier could have his teeth looked at and even then they wouldn't put a regular filling in. Instead they put in a temperary filling which isn't designed to last longer then one week.

I've seen to many cases of neglect and incompetence to ever trust a military doctor unless I had absolutely no other choice. I always get a check up at a civilian doctor and dentist before getting deployed that way I can make sure everything is dealt with by a professional instead of a washed up hack how failed in the real world.

[Static Universe]

Yeah, army dentists suck. When I was in basic, I got pulled out of the chow line and sent to the dentist where I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled out, in five minutes.

Later on, a buddy of mine was told to stop brushing his teeth or they'd fall out. I mean his teeth were pretty bad to begin with, but still.

It can be hard to see a civilian doctor on active service since you don't really have insurance, but you do have the option.

Funny story: a friend of mine got himself three weeks leave by faking the symptons of an appendicitis and claiming his parents would pay for the operation in a civilian hospital. Good thing nobody ever wanted to see the scar.

[The Mad Monk]

Has anyone tried to do something about this?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Yeah, you can *****. Anything you say or do disappears down a big black bureaucratic hole.

The big problem now is that post 'Nam, the military decided that a lot of it's support functions will come primarily or exclusively from the reserves, but they have not reformed the reserves structurally since WW2.

Basically, the reserves used to be places for sad sacks who you could con into sticking around because they got to play soldier, so that just in case the **** hit the fan somewhere, you had instant speedbumps until the draftee army got put together. That characterized a lot of the early Korean war, between the first row of speed bumps (occupation forces in Asia) and the regular draftee Army.

Now, you have a generally professional regular military (with some horror story ****ups like docs and dentists, etc.), and a reserve component that should function the same way, but it's still the same type of (dis)organization it was 50 years ago - and it's still a bastard child to the regular forces.

A good first step would be splitting FORSCOM into two equal commands - one for regular forces in CONUS, and one to oversee all Reserve and National Guard matters.

Once you have a four star regular army command, you can then set about reforming the entire system.

Meanwhile, some things being done at Stewart are assinine - there's a shortage of docs to treat the regulars and reservists in transit and the medical holds, so the medical holds should be split out to different bases nearer their homes and reserve units.

Any time there is a disability claim, and you don't have pieces visibly missing (and sometimes, even when you do), there is an institutional mentality to find any ****ing excuse you can find to claim the disability is non-service related. In my dead brother's case, he had an 18 year fight on disability, and when he died, the VA (different organization, same mentality) spent more money by far denying service related cause of death and fighting appeals that it would have cost in survivors benefits to his widow and their kids.

Army docs in general are abysmal - they come in getting O3 pay, which is about a tenth what they'd get on the outside, but they are immune from liability. There's also a real shortage of docs qualified to deal with secondary traumatic injuries (that's mostly OJT after the casualties start coming in from Germany), and with infectious diseases, virology, etc. It's no excuse, because the Navy (at least at Navy hospital in San Diego) contracts with civilian docs who work in real hospitals.

It is entirely possible to distribute these patients out to multiple bases, and to get them proper care under contract at civilian medical facilities. It is simply a command failure to do so, from the top down.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Static Universe
Yeah, army dentists suck. When I was in basic, I got pulled out of the chow line and sent to the dentist where I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled out, in five minutes.

If the Army wanted you to have wisdom teeth, they would have issued you a set. Besides, I bet you never grew back any new ones after that experience, did you, soldier?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Odin
More proof that Bush is a scumbag.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS YOUR JACKASS HYPOCRITE!!!

Vets, especially banged up or crippled up ones who are no longer useful for service, have been ****ed over in the US since the American Revolution. Other countries have been ****ing over their vets longer.

If you don't stay fit for full duty, or have the courtesy to die with acceptable efficiency, you're just a liability. And now that they ship bodies home, you're a pain in their ass if you die.

[laurentius]

Well, Frankly I dont think the US army is the only place with incompetent docs. I have serious dobts about the capability of our Finnish army doctors too. I mean I waited for 7 hours to see a doctor. I had just had a leg operation and would have needed antibiotics and pain killers for that. What did I get, a couple of aspirin pills. Yeah, sweet.
So I got out of the army and got proper treatment in a real hospital.

Cant you sue them?

[Sikander]

Too bad Rummy wasn't up for the unglamorous job of sorting out the reserves and guard. I would have remained in the active reserves if I wasn't absolutely sure that I'd be getting fvcked constantly by the command structure. Our unit averaged a new CO every six months for over 20 years. Average attendance at drills was about 15-20% of paper strength because people were not getting paid. The worst morale was amongst the senior NCOs, whom I would have sacked immediately upon taking command (had I been unfortunate enough to be in command). It would have been unfair in many ways, as they didn't gripe for no reason, but IMO they were beyond redemption in their bitterness, and their effect on even brand new troops was poisonous.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Nope, not even if they blatantly and incompetently and unnecessarily cripple or kill you, and there's absolutely no disputing the facts of the case.

[laurentius]

Well, WTF is that!? They dont take any responsebility?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Sikander
Too bad Rummy wasn't up for the unglamorous job of sorting out the reserves and guard. I would have remained in the active reserves if I wasn't absolutely sure that I'd be getting fvcked constantly by the command structure. Our unit averaged a new CO every six months for over 20 years. Average attendance at drills was about 15-20% of paper strength because people were not getting paid. The worst morale was amongst the senior NCOs, whom I would have sacked immediately upon taking command (had I been unfortunate enough to be in command). It would have been unfair in many ways, as they didn't gripe for no reason, but IMO they were beyond redemption in their bitterness, and their effect on even brand new troops was poisonous.

Assuming you had the means and the authority to fix the problems, I'd rather have a little come to Jesus chat with the bitter beyond redemption. Start fixing the problems and offer them gentle encouragement (size 11-EEE Corcorans in my case ) to be part of the solution, or make examples of them after I started fixing the problems, to encourage their replacements to be part of the solution.

If you sack them immediately, you just look like a p***k. It's important for the troops' future performance to understand why you're a p***k.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by laurentius
Well, WTF is that!? They dont take any responsebility?

By law, the military (and it's personnel acting in their official capacity) are immune to civil suits by military personnel or their survivors.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

Assuming you had the means and the authority to fix the problems, I'd rather have a little come to Jesus chat with the bitter beyond redemption. Start fixing the problems and offer them gentle encouragement (size 11-EEE Corcorans in my case ) to be part of the solution, or make examples of them after I started fixing the problems, to encourage their replacements to be part of the solution.

If you sack them immediately, you just look like a p***k. It's important for the troops' future performance to understand why you're a p***k.

That's smart. If you've got to sh!tcan some people you should get as much mileage as possible out of them by way of example, and as you and Napolean (IIRC) have said before, they can serve as an example pour les outres.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Apropos to nothing...

I used to ride to drill with my platoon sergeant. He was actually one of the few senior NCOs who didn't have a major morale problem, and amazingly he had an MOS that was actually pertinent to the unit. Anyway, we were driving to drill one weekend and he started *****ing about having to wait in line at the convenience store the night before behind a black lady (and he didn't use the word black or lady) who was buying a bunch of lottery tickets. The clerk was typing in her numbers one after another, and the line at the counter was huge. I was aghast, and sat in stunned silence as this piece of white trash used the N word in his sorry little story. I could see the whole story before he finished it, how blacks were inferior and wasted their welfare money on lottery tickets etc. ad nauseum. I caught myself drifting on this line of thought and checked back in as he finished his little story.

"Finally she gets her last ticket and I get to the front of the line and say, gimme 10 quickpicks."

That dumbass was only pi$sed off because she didn't use the random number function to buy her lottery tickets, but instead wanted to play "her" numbers. I laughed uncontrollably at his little story, and I'm sure that he thought I was laughing with him. Wrong!

[Sprayber]

I know there are lots of horror stories but during my recent depolyment I found the doctors at Fort Sill to be very professional on how they conducted themselves. At first there was a problem with records and such but over all the doctors there acted better than a lot of civilian doctors I have been too. As far as pay goes, I have heard lots of stories about them botching pay, and it has happened to me. The key is to be good friends with the administration guys and all those problems always gets smoothed over. There have been at least two occasions where a particular guy covered my ass and I got paid while I was not there. All I had to do was come in the following week and make it up.

A couple of years ago we got a new Training NCO and all he was interested in doing was marking time until retirment. Thankfully that didnt last long when the new commander came in.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by Sprayber
I know there are lots of horror stories but during my recent depolyment I found the doctors at Fort Sill to be very professional on how they conducted themselves. At first there was a problem with records and such but over all the doctors there acted better than a lot of civilian doctors I have been too.

There are some very good doctors serving in the army, especially if you're stationed at a base large enough to support a decent hospital or one that does medical type training.

Unfortunately, most of the poor doctors seem farmed out to deal with soldier inprocessing or screening sick call or doing physicals, and this is where most of the diagnostic, early treatment and medical record problems begin. These doctors tend to be simply incompetent to deal with anything except prescribing you Motrin.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by laurentius

Cant you sue them?

As far as I understand it, a U.S. serviceman cannot sue the government or military under any circumstances related to their military service, including healthcare.

[Mr. Harley]

However, there is another issue. Members of the military consistantly vote Republican and conservative. To fund tax cuts, especially since the Gingrich House back in the 1990's, support services have been "contracted out" and veterans benefits reduced whenever politicians thought they could get away with it.

The Bush administration has taken this to new lows, rescinding Clinton administration initiatives to go out and encourage veterans to take advantage of their benefits. The Bush administration is not your old traditional Republican party - they support a leaner, meaner military, which translates to fewer Main Battle Tanks, and more Stryker light combat vehicles, which are deployed easier (read more cheaply) and could not pass the required heavy machine gun ballistics test (read a 50 caliber HMG will penetrate them). But heck, we'll still deploy them, with little armor appliques that might work rather than flunk them. Since an RPG 7 shaped charge round will penetrate them, we'll deploy them with screen cages to pre-detonate them, we hope (and if not, well, it's only one crew that dies). I guess General Dynamics gave the Bush Reelection Committee enough money.

To translate, this means more casualties but hey, they aren't our kids! As long as veterans and serving military members let the current Republican leadership off the hook on how they treat veterans and vote as a group Republican, then they will be treated like crap. Make the Neoconservatives worry, and maybe some of those tax cuts can instead go to taking care of the individuals who put themselves at life's risk for their country. Genuine tradional values.