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Disposable Soldiers
* By Joshua Kors The Nation *
The mortar shell that wrecked Chuck Luther’s life exploded at the base of the guard tower. Luther heard the brief whistling, followed by a flash of fire, a plume of smoke and a deafening bang that shook the tower and threw him to the floor. The Army sergeant’s head slammed against the concrete, and he lay there in the Iraqi heat, his nose leaking clear fluid.
“I remember laying there in a daze, looking around, trying to figure out where I was at,” he says. “I was nauseous. My teeth hurt. My shoulder hurt. And my right ear was killing me.” Luther picked himself up and finished his shift, then took some ibuprofen to dull the pain. The sergeant was seven months into his deployment at Camp Taji, in the volatile Sunni Triangle, twenty miles north of Baghdad. He was determined, he says, to complete his mission. But the short, muscular frame that had guided him to twenty-two honors–including three Army Achievement Medals and a Combat Action Badge–was basically broken. The shoulder pain persisted, and the hearing in his right ear, which evaporated on impact, never returned, replaced by the maddening hum of tinnitus.
Then came the headaches. “They’d start with a speckling in the corner of my vision, then grow worse and worse until finally the right eye would just shut down and go blank,” he says. “The left one felt like someone was stabbing me over and over in the eye.”
Doctors at Camp Taji’s aid station told Luther he was faking his symptoms. When he insisted he wasn’t, they presented a new diagnosis for his blindness: personality disorder.
“To be told that I was lying, that was a real smack in the face,” says Luther. “Then when they said ‘personality disorder,’ I was really confused. I didn’t understand how a problem with my personality could cause deafness or blindness or shoulder pain.”
For three years The Nation has been reporting on military doctors’ fraudulent use of personality disorder to discharge wounded soldiers [see Kors, "How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits," April 9, 2007]. PD is a severe mental illness that emerges during childhood and is listed in military regulations as a pre-existing condition, not a result of combat. Thus those who are discharged with PD are denied a lifetime of disability benefits, which the military is required to provide to soldiers wounded during service. Soldiers discharged with PD are also denied long-term medical care. And they have to give back a slice of their re-enlistment bonus. That amount is often larger than the soldier’s final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars.
Read more at The Nation
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=30274
Posted by Bob Higgins on May 6 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Military, Support the Troops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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According to any military doctor we’re all faking injury. I injured my knee in 1995. For 5 years I was told to just sit down and put ice on it (no profile) and keep taking Motrin or what even new meds they wanted to test. VA decided it was merely tendonitis. In 2001, a doctor actually took an X-Ray and thought there might be a torn disc and warranted physical therapy. Here is is 2010, and after waiting 2 years after a CT Scan verified the torn disc the VA is admitting additional disability, but only for the past 2 years. Our government and society does not care. WE ARE ALL DISPOSABLE. I have been told repeated by the government agents I have requested assistance from “so what”.
There are many good dental and medical in the Military, serving because of patriotism. There are many bad ones, who are there to pay back medical school loans, and are angry they are obligated.
There are many lazy ones. They come into the military with prejudices and social values of the clueless stupidity of the average American Joe.
On their own as a civilian these Dr’s struggle to make private practice work for them. Therefor like the VA they go into government work. This is a small minority!!! But this minority screw up a lot of people.
I’ve seen it too many times. When I was in the military, I met a soldier whose sargant threw him under a bunk and he stated getting blackouts. Maybe I shouldn’t say blackouts. Does falling down in formation count as a blackout. A woman who injured her ankle, it healed and then was injured again on a five mile run in full pack. Soldiers are disposable until they’re needed. If the the government doesn’t take care of those soldiers, there will be no other soldiers to take their places.
I hope more civilians read Veteran’s Today because they have no idea of what the Army is really like.
Thank you Bob.
This is happening to Vietnam Veterans too…. even after years of being diagnosed by many professionals, including professionals in the VA, for PTSD, combat type and immediately ruling out any ‘mood-disorders’… a combat veteran who has been trying to get benefits for 15 years… can have a contract doctor for the VA, for a C&P Exam… diagnose the veteran of Bi-Polar Disorder and Personality Disorder and fall just short of calling the veteran an ‘out-and-out liar’.
I know.
All ended well, but it took swinging and fighting all the way to the very end.
We are not done.
Americans HAVE to know about this kind of treatment of some of our finest veterans.
ROMANS 13:4
“For he is the minister of GOD to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, BE AFRAID; for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of GOD , a revenger to execute wrath upon those that doeth evil…”
Hey man… I’m the Pat Robertson of the LEFT. I talk to GOD too, but the message isn’t the same… Can I get an AMEN?
So, how’d this years National Day of Prayer go? I’ve noticed many Christians seem to have their heads in the clouds… lol (or up their @$$)
Isn’t it coincidence that the WORST environmental disaster in human history will affect “drill baby DRILL” Red States Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and crazy South Carolina? Not to mention Tennessee and Kentucky getting hit with un-heard-of flooding.
TAKE A HINT!
It’s as though GOD himself has come down from heaven to rub Republican/Conservative noses in the evil BS they’ve spewed for the last few years. It seems like just yesterday that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck worked their groupies into a cult frenzy with calls for off-shore oil DRILLING.
Read a passage in the Bible, a hundred people could come up with a hundred different ways to make the words work for them. Christians become War profiteers because they found verse to get around “Blessed are the peacemakers”. If your listening to vicious, greed stricken, degenerate fanatics interpreting the Bible then one might as well become a devil worshipper.
NOTE: (I was at this one church in the South listening to a rant that ended with a description of Jesus gunning down all the homo’s and commies, or something like that, lol. NO WONDER you right-wing fanatics are cursed)
Fanaticism turns Muslim against their Holy Book the Quraan. The contradiction couldn’t be more glaring. One only read the 2nd book of the Holy Quraan:
11. “And when it is said unto them: Make NOT mischief on Earth, we are PEACEMAKERS only.
12. Behold they are indeed the mischief-makers but they PERCEIVE not.
13. And when it is said unto them: Believe as the PEOPLE believe
Shall we believe as the foolish believe? Behold, they are the foolish yet they KNOW NOT…”
(Yea… there’s a lot of THAT going around nowadays)
There are those in power who have no shame, feel no guilt, possess no conscience or capacity for empathy. Evil beings who would use everything from the Bible to Darwin to justify their own vain, self-serving, power mad, evil existence. Knowledge as a weapon , a tool to CONTROL the masses who couldn’t possibly understand.
“Morality – it was created for the common man. The higher man doesn’t worry about whether something is good or evil. He has the courage to rise above that sort of nonsense and ACT.” NIETZSCHE
Since humans are doing the right or wrong, once and for all we must set the standards of what is good and what is evil. WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG! Reality NOW, from the Almighty GOD to Allah to Buddha to Jesus to Zoroaster there are common basic principles needed to judge your fellow human being:
Seven Virtues – justice, temperance (moderation), courage, wisdom, faith, hope and love (charity).
Seven Sins – pride, envy (malice), wrath, lechery, gluttony, avarice (greed) and sloth.
…Anything beyond these is whiny excuse, spin, ignorance, misinformation, hiding behind high priced attorneys and the worst kind of BS…
Imagine the American PEOPLE have lost their ability for critical analysis and legitimate debate. Blind faith replaces common sense and rational stance. (it’s NOT so far-fetched, lol) Then WHO do we trust to DECIDE what is right and wrong? Especially in a nation that’s become so divided… EASY!
Three words… ETHICS, RESPONSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY. You can’t go wrong DEMANDING that from your government and corporate leaders. I suggest the American PEOPLE make these demands NOW… or Constitutional RIGHTS and FREEDOMS will become nothing more than delicate concepts.
AMEN
lol
jinnbad.blogspot.com
Every generation of rear echelon psych and med professionals has its share of bean counters that over look the obvious authenticity of a vast majority of our combat zone disabled service personnel.
The burden of proof is so crucial that any military personnel that doesn’t keep a complete set of medical records from their military service is doing themselves harm when it comes to seeking treatment or benefits from their injuries.