thoughts from a brokenSoldier

If there is any mystery as to why McCain has remained so close in the polls despite his innumerable gaffes, his constant displays of self-aggrandizement and flaunting of his POW past as political capital, and his zig-zagging back and forth between the cones of his policy positions during this campaign, this article by Margriet Oostveen on Salon.com should clear it up a bit for you.

We are all influenced by the tides of public opinion, whether we admit it or not.  And the opinions expressed by supposedly genuine citizens in their letters to their local newspapers go a long way towards skewing the perceptions of what a collective community is thinking.  McCain’s campaign and his Rovian acolytes certainly know this, so it should be no surprise to anyone that they have mobilized shameless surrogates in this arena in order to project an image of popular support for their campaign.

This article is one that tells of a team of individuals whose job is to write fake letters - replete with lies and deception - to local editors in battleground states for the purpose of influencing the opinions of those voters who may not have made up their minds on their electoral choice.  While I am grateful for the author’s candor in writing this piece, it sickens me that anyone would actually do this.  From pretending to be a staunch supporter of the Republican ticket to falsely claiming an emotional connection to the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families in order to pull on the heartstrings of those who actually are in that situation, no tactic is off limits.  This is the ultimate example of the ends justifying the means.

These people do not care that their efforts are intentionally false or that the wrong choice in this election will inevitably wreak havoc on our national situation - their only goal is to get their guy into the White House.  I simply cannot think of a single thing that is more un-American than this.

The author admits she pretended to be the mother of a soldier deployed to Iraq in order to draw like-minded individuals over to the McCain side. This not only offends me, but it also genuinely hurts.  As I have already made known, I was wounded in Iraq in September 2005 and was evacuated back home as a result.  Even considering the physical pain and mental torment I experienced - and continue to experience - as a direct result of my wounds and experiences in Iraq, the single greatest pain I felt throughout the entire situation occurred in November of that year.  I was at Fort Gordon’s Eisenhower Army Medical Center waiting to see my family for the first time since shipping off to war.  When they finally arrived, I was utterly heartbroken when my mother walked through the door and saw her only son confined to a wheelchair.  I saw the pain and sorrow in her eyes, and to this day I wish that I had instead waited until I was able to walk under my own power before seeing her.  I’ll never be able to get that image of my mother out of my mind, as I am sure she will never be able to erase the sight of me in such a condition from her memory for as long as she lives.  No mother should ever have to see her child like that. Period.

For someone to outright lie about something so emotionally traumatic for the sole purpose of political gain is beyond deplorable.  And it is made exponentially worse by the fact that this is being done for the benefit of a war veteran’s Presidential campaign.  If anyone should be above such dirty tactics, it should be a man who personally understands the damage such a thing can cause.

I will not even listen to platitudes asserting that he may not have known about this practice.  If John McCain, a former officer and leader, truly does understand the military and the way it operates, then he knows that a leader is responsible for the actions of his subordinates, regardless of whether or not he had an active hand in those actions.

This morning, I simply disagreed with McCain and viewed him as a self-centered political opportunist.  This evening, after reading this article, I personally dislike the man and harbor a burning desire to see him completely removed from his position of influence in our nation’s government.  This morning, he simply did not appeal to me as a potential leader of the country.  This evening, John McCain - along with his campaign - makes me sick.

In addition to Bush’s shameless willingness to prop up an active US Army General (GEN Petraeus) as a political bulwark in front of Congress to lend credibility to his mishandling of the Iraq war, this article is proof positive that this administration sees no area of our government as off-limits to the practices of politicization and manipulation.

If we can’t trust our own generals to execute their duties with integrity and do so free of the bias of political machination, we are headed down a dark road, indeed.  I came up as both an enlisted soldier and officer in the combat arms sector of our military, and I was trained to execute my duties using only my own judgement and good common sense in order to look out for the welfare of those soldiers under my charge.  I was raised in an Army that prohibits its members from expressing their personal political opinion while in their official capacity, and especially from allowing those opinions to affect or guide their job performance.  It pains me to see such a high ranking officer ignore that training, and such conduct causes direct and possibly irreparable harm to the military’s mission to be an unconditional and impartial defender of our Constitution.  If this kind of officer conduct is not immediately and effectively addressed and corrected, it will cause a great deal of harm to the institution meant to defend our nation, and that will leave us all at risk.

We all took an oath upon entering into the service to defend our Constitution from all enemies - foreign and domestic.  Any politician that encourages such deplorable conduct in the nation’s military officer corps definitely qualifies as such a domestic enemy, and any officer not willing to stand up and confront such politicization is not fit to wear the uniform.  This makes me sick.

   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.