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.
