Veterans of Lip Service
As a citizen, I’m hoping this year’s Presidential election is going to change - at least a little bit - this country’s political environment. Because as a veteran, I’m sick and tired of the way our nation talks at problems rather than actually doing something to resolve them.
I can’t count how many times, especially during election years, that I have gotten utterly fed up with politicians and their declarations that they "support the troops." This goes double for the ones that say such things on one hand, while turning around with the other and shoving the troops and veterans right under the bus when it comes to tangible benefits. And I really hate it when such a candidate tries to prance around and act as if he’s held in reverential regard by the organizations that represent me as a veteran, spouting that he has won every major award and received the highest voting grades from each of those organizations. In saying this, John McCain is directly lying to those voters he is trying oh-so-hard to court.
But he isn’t the only one - just the most prominent. To me, if you’re trying to attain the highest office in our nation, and you are doing so while running on your distinguished record of service to both the nation and to its veterans, you will be held to the highest level of scrutiny by its citizens. But the veterans he so falsely claims to support will most definitely hold him to a higher standard than the citizens, due to the common experience he shares with us. And when he claims to hold every major award, and claims he has received perfect voting evaluations, from veterans’ organizations, he fails miserably in our eyes. First, it is not true, as can be seen in the links below. Second, for a veteran to lie about his support to his fellow soldiers like that is inexcusable.
http://www.iava.org/full-ratings-list
http://dav.capwiz.com/bio/id/192
The fact that he would lie about those he is sworn to represent is purely typical these days in Washingon, and the disingenuity has spread out of the wing tips of politicians and into the combat boots of our military. There was a time in the Army when, as a leader, if you failed to do your job correctly and it resulted in a soldier not getting what he or she needed or deserved, you would be fired. If you didn’t know the answer to a question, you were expected to get it quickly, or else. This was all because whether or not you had a damn thing to do with something that went wrong, if it went wrong in your house, it was your responsibility. Those days, I am sad to say, are gone.
Case in point - I was medically retired on January 28, 2008 due to injuries received in combat. Since I had originally been a National Guardsman, they put me in a program called Community Based Health Care Option (CBHCO), where I lived at home and reported to a command cell in Orlando, FL (I lived in Panama City, FL). The reason I got into this program was for the sole fact that I did not live within 60 miles of a Military Treatment Facility, and also because I was restricted - due to my injuries - from driving any more than 45 minutes at a time. I thought that once I made it home, I wouldn’t have to worry. I thought that once I made it out of Iraq, I wouldn’t have to sweat over my health, even in its degraded state. That’s what I thought, but I was wrong. In bullet point style, here are a few of the things my government has done for me to ensure that this veteran is taken care of:
- September 2005: Injured in IED attack in Iraq, seen by medic from another unit who diagnoses me with a concussion (did not specify severity), and misses the fact that my eardrum is ruptured in two places.
- October 2005: Sent to Air Force hospital in Iraq for evaluation (after an entire month); subsequently sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany with a diagnosis of severe (grade 3) concussion with Post-Concussion syndrome.
- November 2005: Head neurologist at LRMC states that my Post-Concussion syndrome isn’t too serious; He orders me to return to duty in Iraq; Two weeks later I lose consciousness in my Troop HQ; Medically evacuated to LRMC, again. This time the very same neurologist says my Post-Concussion syndrome is "apparently more serious than we originally thought."
- December 2005 - Arrive stateside at Fort Gordon, GA.
Fast forward to February, and I found myself living back at home in Panama City Beach, FL under the CBHCO program’s supervision. (Mind you, I am a head injury patient that is on medications such as Percocet, Soma, Cymbalta, Xanax, etc…) CBHCO requires that every soldier work, so I was driving to a National Guard unit every day, 20 miles one-way, to sit at a desk and answer phones. That is, when I wasn’t laying in a dark room trying to fight off a three-day migraine. Calling in sick was not an option, and the one time I worked out a deal with the Guard unit to stay home - they were at their Annual Training, and did not see a reason for me to come in - my case manager at CBHCO filed a reprimand on me and made me sign away my leave time to make up for the time I was not at the work site. I was even told that she wanted to proceed with an Article 15 on me for insubordination. (While on the couch with one of the post-trauma headaches that I get every couple of weeks, she insisted on asking the same question over and over, and I made the mistake of not putting the word Ma’am after answering her the last time.) What follows is a list of the bullshit I have had to put up with between the time I was assigned to CBHCO and the day I was finally retire. (Although, I am only on temporary retirememt - they can call me back in for reevaluation every 12 months - for up to five years - to try to cut my rate below the 30% threshold for permanent medical retirement.)
- Every six months, CBHCO had to cut new orders for me - the standard procedure for medical hold soldiers - and required that I drive to the nearest ID facility to update my own file. Apparently this policy ignores the fact that every soldier under CBHCO is placed there mainly due to their injuries and their distance from a military facility. When I couldn’t make it, no exceptions were made - my medical coverage simply lapsed. On at least five occasions, I had to pay for the entire cost of my medicine, and I still have bills from uncovered visits to my doctor.
- While going through the Physician’s Evaluation Board (PEB) - the process during which a panel of Army doctors determines what the soldier’s disability rating will be - I was having trouble fighting their claims. They originally awarded me 10%, even thoguh I was being rated for five different conditions (most soldiers only have one or two on their PEB evaluation). Even though I had been diagnosed with PTSD at the Tampa VA hospital, the Army saw fit to designate it as an unspecified Anxiety disorder that did not preclude service, which automatically gave it a 0% rating. During this fight, I was told by my liason to the PEB (PEBLO) that she was "not there to hold my hand" in dealing with the PEB. (This was in response to my request that she be present on a conference call with the PEB to discuss the initial rating, which she denied. Apparently her supervisor changed her decision though, because the next day she was on the phone, though she offered nothing in the way of assistance.)
When I was finally retired, it was with a temporary rating of 50%, all of which was from their rating of my - now medically unacceptable - anxiety disorder. My post-trauma headaches received a 0% rating, because the Army has published an instruction to its physicians that such headaches - to be considered ‘prostrating,’ which is what the rating schedule requires - must mean that the soldier stops immediately and seeks emergency medical attention. Nevermind that in the event of a truly prostrating migraine, it is near impossible for a soldier living alone - as I was - to get to the ER, especially when the nearest one is a 25 mile drive from my house. So, when my headaches were rated, they were at 0% due to the fact that I hadn’t been to the emergency room for them. (Which was in itself a lie, because I had been to the ER, but they chose to characterize that as a result of something other than my headaches - I was reporting dizziness and my headache, so naturally, the headaches weren’t the main cause in the eyes of the Army, so that didn’t count.)
I’m omitting a great deal, but I’ll jump ahead to where I stand now. I was retired almost seven months ago, but only received my first retirement check in June, because the retirement services office at Fort Stewart mishandled my packet. And when the checks did start to come in, they were taking taxes out - which is definitely not supposed to happen for retirees that were wounded in combat. Once that was fixed, I finally found a doctor that I like in my new area (I was forced to move back into my parents’ house due to the lack of any income from January to June), and upon going to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions she gave me, I found that ALL of my medical coverage had expired, including my prescription coverage. This was because DEERS (the military ID department that handles personnel records) never got any paperwork stating that I was retired, so the only medical coverage I got was the six-month transitional coverage that every soldier gets upon separation. That ran out this month, and I am shit out of luck.
So here I sit, as a disabled vet with no medical coverage, no prescription coverage, and debt coming out of my ears because I was left for half of a year without any income at all. Taking care of the troops, indeed. My point in all of this is that when a politician says he supports the troops, I will no longer believe him - regardless of party - until I see me and my fellow vets get some decent treatment. I don’t care about perfect voting records for vets, I don’t care how much time the politician spent in the uniform - until we actually get treated with care and respect, until we actually see some results, their words are empty.
To those politicians: We are being mistreated in your house, on your watch. I don’t give a damn about what you say you support - the government’s record of action does not bear out your claims. You may personally support us, but until you can exert enough influence to make the policies of this nation reflect your convictions, your words are simply rhetoric. And nothing pisses me off more than being patted on the head with praise while at the same time being swept under the rug by the very same government that claims to support me.
Belated congrats on your new blog. This might be a naive question, but are you going to file a complaint about not getting the medical coverage for retirees?
Comment by windy — July 20, 2008 @ 12:22 am
Comment by windy — July 20, 2008 @ 12:22 am
Yes, I’m in the process of filing a complaint with the Inspector General’s office at Fort Stewart aganist their retirement services office, but the NYPD isn’t the only one to live by a code of internal protection - even at the expense of regulatory fidelity - by any means, so I don’t expect my claim to result in much. But hey, that kind of thing has never stopped me before, so why should I start letting it affect me now?
Comment by brokensoldier — July 20, 2008 @ 1:24 am
My dad is a vet (Korea), and he didn’t find out until just a few years back that he was even eligible for disability benefits (he has some left over injuries from a US mortar that blew up in his face on launch).
Frankly, I don’t trust that the army, or the feds, ever would have notified him he was eligible. It took a connected friend (dead now) and a lot of work to finally get him his benefits.
as to medical benefits, the Vet admin. (now) does seem to cover a lot of his medical expenses (including prescriptions, etc.).
It seems pathetic how the military acts more like a cheap-ass insurance company than anything else, and it sure sounds like they use similar criteria for “rejection of claims”:
I was having trouble fighting their claims. They originally awarded me 10%, even thoguh I was being rated for five different conditions (most soldiers only have one or two on their PEB evaluation). Even though I had been diagnosed with PTSD at the Tampa VA hospital, the Army saw fit to designate it as an unspecified Anxiety disorder that did not preclude service, which automatically gave it a 0% rating.
that’s some pretty cheap-ass fucktardism they pulled on you there.
I seriously wish you luck in straightening this mess out.
Comment by Ichthyic — July 20, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Grrr…
As an utter civilian, from another country even, your story still makes me angry.
PS you may want to get out of the habit of using bullet points.
PPS FWIW, here in Oz we got rid of the Howard crony, and Blair is gone too, over the pond. Good luck over there.
Comment by John Morales — July 20, 2008 @ 4:07 am
Point taken, John, and I’ll try to heed the advice in the future. But as the sentiment goes, “You can the the soldier out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the soldier.”
I guess I’m a victim of the tendency (mostly among officers who are inevitably forced into the prolific use of PowerPoint presentations) towards brevity that serves briefings quite well, while at the same time making blog posts a bit unattractive.
Comment by brokensoldier — July 20, 2008 @ 4:36 am
Three things you might consider:
* Complain to the Ft. Stewart Inspector General. You’ll need to have copies of as much paperwork as possible to forward, but if a command or office at Ft. Stewart didn’t do their job, the IG can investigate.
* Write your congresscritter.
* See if a local reporter, newspaper or tv, would be interested in writing about your problem. That may rattle a few military/VA cages.
Good luck.
JoJo, CAPT, USN, Ret.
Comment by JoJo — July 20, 2008 @ 11:01 am
JoJo,
Thanks for the comment. I’m in the process of filing the IG complaint, and I’ve been in touch with the Congressman from my area for quite some time dealing with the Army. As for the reporter avenue, you’d be surprised to find out just how many journalists just don’t care about telling this kind of story. I tried to get my local newspaper to run an article about it, and they decided that a simple bio was sufficient. And no national level media figure of any type has answered any of my numerous e-mails. I guess this story just doesn’t fit into the message their bosses want to send!
Comment by brokensoldier — July 20, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Comment by Ichthyic — July 20, 2008 @ 3:50 am
Yeah, but the sad thing is that is the modus operandi of Army doctors these days - apparently the Hippocratic oath doesn’t apply to those dressed in green.
Comment by brokensoldier — July 20, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
Fuck. That’s disgraceful. This is not the country that I was raised to believe in.
If there is anything I can do from Tampa Bay, please let me know. We have a large VA hospital here, and I know one of the doctors and several of the vets personally, maybe they can help point you in the right direction? I don’t know the questions to ask, though.
Comment by MikeG — July 21, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
Comment by MikeG — July 21, 2008 @ 6:42 pm
Thanks, MikeG, I appreciate the offer. I think the biggest reason I have been unable to get help from anyone is that the Army - and by proxy, the government - refuses to accept the reasoning of anyone but their own agents. I mean, they actually told me that my civilian doctor could write all the letters he wants outlining the details of my conditions, but the only evaluations the PEB would look at were the ones written by the Army doctors during the exams for my formal evaluation.
It’s a lot easier to stonewall people when you’re allowed to ignore evidence contrary to your own position as a matter of policy. It seems as if the government’s arrogance in dismissing the need for transparency and accountability has rubbed off on the military, and that is a sad prospect, indeed.
Comment by brokensoldier — July 21, 2008 @ 6:50 pm
In that case, I suppose all I can offer is my assurance that I will use my vote wisely, and my voice, howling full throat at the wind.
And my thanks for your service.
Comment by MikeG — July 22, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
It’s a lot easier to stonewall people when you’re allowed to ignore evidence contrary to your own position as a matter of policy.
Hey! I think you just summarized the current administration as a whole in a single sentence.
Comment by Ichthyic — July 22, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
brokenSoldier,
I have drafted a brief email to the editorial board of the St. Petersburg times, pasted below. With your permission, I’ll send it:
I have seen covered in the Times reports of the wars and the treatment of our returning vets. I wish to inform you of another such case of maltreatment of our vets. This soldier, whose name he has not shared, has written eloquently and stirringly about his treatment upon returning injured from battle and the treatment he has received through the military medical process.
I believe his story deserves more coverage than it is getting. His blog post about his medical fight can be found here . I hope you will read his story and consider contacting him for an article to more widely advertise what our returning wounded vets face.
Thank you for your time,
MikeG (full name and address redacted)
Comment by MikeG — July 22, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
The link to this post didn’t get transferred, but it’s in the email.
Comment by MikeG — July 22, 2008 @ 7:42 pm
MikeG,
By all means, send that e-mail (well stated, by the way) to anyone you see fit. My whole intent is to spread this thing as far and fast as I can, because I think that is the only way people will pay meaningful attention to the whole deal. I wish I could really relate how grateful I am, but sometimes words just aren’t enough.
PS: And if you want to include my name, you can. It is at the bottom of PZ’s post on the topic. And, if it helps, my rank is Captain (Army).
Comment by brokensoldier — July 23, 2008 @ 12:30 am
Done.
Comment by MikeG — July 23, 2008 @ 6:01 am
Wandered here from Pharyngula.
I am unfortuanltly not surprised but I am appalled and sympathetic.
I am even more appalled to find out you’re an officer. Here’s my reasoning: policy or not, intentional or not, rule of thumb is officers get better treatment. You are undoubtedly getting fucked dry in this situation; so this begs the question what in hell’s name are they doing to the privates?
Comment by Lynnai — July 23, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
I am a fellow migraineur. I participate at a forum for this disease (www.migrainepage.com). I will post a link to your blog there. Should you wish to discuss migraine with others who know the condition intimately, please feel free to contribute.
For what it’s worth, McCain will not be getting my vote.
Best of luck to you.
Comment by Leslie — July 23, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Comment by Lynnai — July 23, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
That is the exact question that drove me to seek out help in making this situation public. I was enlisted before I got my commission, and thus I have always been committed to looking out for the guys that do the hard work. My reasoning in starting this public appeal was simply this:
If they want to treat me like this, I’ll fight back.
But if they think they can treat Joe like this, they just fucked with the wrong officer.
Comment by brokensoldier — July 23, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
Comment by Leslie — July 23, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Thanks for the kind words, and for the link - I’m headed there right now.
Comment by brokensoldier — July 23, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
Dear Sir,
(I use this is the most respectful way for your rank.) I am a fellow migraine sufferer, a wimp who would rather flea to Canada than to go to war, and a Registered Nurse. Aside from these things, I have been mistreated ( medically) as a citizen. I feel your pain, but sadly I can tell you what is seen from the other side.
I had viral meningitis a few months back and visited the hospital that I worked for- for treatment advised by my private physician… he was afraid it might be bacterial… I was sent home with muscle relaxers and a note to return to work the next day due to a sprained neck- I’ve sprained lots of things and my neck is not one of them.
Luckily, I have a friend who (as whacked as he may be in other aspects of his life) is a phenominal Harvard grad MD. He said to lay off the muscle relaxers, which was helpful, and who ensured that I needed to treat myself for a virus (time, fluids and rest) since I had the worst migraine of my life- which I can only describe as a 20/10 pain that went from my eyebrows to my coccyx, i.e viral meningitis. A visit to another ER only got me the diagnosis of DRUG-SEEKER.
However, although it is no excuse, the doctors and nurses that treat most people are over-worked and see too many people trying to take advantage of the system. They (doctors and nurses) lose perspective on why they are truly in their “calling” due to stress and bitterness… or they are only there because its decent money- which I abhor.
I am no perfect nurse. I have great days and ok days, but I always try to see it from the other perspective. I try really hard.
I hear on the news things about vets with no dominant thumb that get 10% disability- maybe…(may be hyperbole… I’m a little tired) How people who give their time and possibly large portions or all of their lives for my safety and well-being that are getting pooh-pooh’d like me is inexcusable. Whether a soldier or a citizen, everyone deserves to be taken seriously and receive care for their injuries… but especially a soldier. I also studied history in my youth and can say that it is a sad day when a country cannot support its defenders.
I cannot say one way or the other about the injuries and severity, but I do say that a migraine with neurological sequelae (nausea, dizziness, or etc.) would raise my attention. I am not a doc, but I think you have a real complaint… However, this system has no way of taking care of the poorest of the poor, the middle-est of the middle or the sickest of the sick. The system does not respect the sacrifice it asks of its volunteer heroes.
Comment by jake — July 23, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
Shit. BASTARDS.
I’m a vet, but I served during peacetime. The one thing I do know is that DOD (maybe it needs to be dUd) medical care is the pits, whether through a military base, VA or any of the other so-called medical benefit plans, They’d find a way to make you go into combat with missing limbs if they thought they could get away with it.
I hated their arrogant incompetence, lying and thievery then, I hate it now. I’m fortunate enough not to need VA care, but I’ll make a few calls to my usual array of Congress people.
Also, I live in San Antonio, with a shitload of active, retired and ex-military, as it should be with three military bases right in the city. I’ll ask around to some of the disabled vets I know. Maybe they know some tricks to get you the care you need.
Who is your congress critter, btw? If you’re in FL, your Senator is Bill Nelson. On his bio page, he proclaims that one of his priorities is “ensuring veterans and their spouses get the benefits they deserve and have access to quality health care.”
If you haven’t contacted him yet, make him live up to those words.
Every veteran deserves the benefits promised to them when the military offered the moon and stars to sign you up, but some need those benefits more than others. You are one of those. If I could give my share of benefits to you, I would. Knowing the dUd, though, they’d just use them to buy some general a lunch at a place to match the number of stars on his shoulders.
Good luck.
Comment by Aquaria — July 24, 2008 @ 8:25 am