Injured veterans engaged in new combat

[DogPoundPup]

Source: L.A. Times

In a little-noticed regulation change, the Pentagon's definition of combat-related disabilities is narrowed, costing some wounded veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits.

Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq -- by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-combat25-2008nov25,0,3682816.story

[babylonsister]

1. This is maddening. Sucks so bad. nt

[stillcool]

2. God that is so fucked up....

it all depends on where you get blown up if you get cared for or not? What insurance company writes the Pentagon's regulations?

"Narrowing the combat-related definition was necessary to preserve the "special distinction for those who incur disabilities while participating in the risk of combat, in contrast with those injured otherwise," William J. Carr, deputy undersecretary of Defense, wrote in a letter to the 1.3-million-member Disabled American Veterans."

[saigon68]

3. The usual fucking "Crock of Shit"

Wait until these people reach age 50 or so and are homeless, living on the streets, begging for food

[happyslug]

4. What will happen to the old training adage "Train hard to fight easy"

When you have statements like this:

Pentagon officials argue that benefits should be greater for veterans wounded in combat than for "members with disabilities incurred in other situations (e.g., simulation of war, instrumentality of war, or participation in hazardous duties, not related to combat)," Carr wrote.

i.e. during training, when you should be given even more difficult problems so that when you get into combat you know what to expect and it is easy. Under such training you will have injuries, and those injuries should be treated as if incurred in combat, for that is what you are training for and why training has to be so tough and dangerous (Blanks are used, time out is called if some one is injured, but the training gets you use to losses, while minimizing them in combat). You end up transferring some of the injures that incur in combat to training, but that is better then increase deaths do to weaker training. These are the cost of training hard so that the men and women have the best idea of what to do in combat, these injuries in training is the cost of being successful in combat.

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. Typical legalistic games, just like the VA's.

While the budgets go to lavish offices at the top. Or b.s. private contracting.

Anybody who thinks our troops are taken care of, is sooo wrong. That has never been true. Not ever. As a peace-type, I was shocked when I found that out in the 1980's, when I met my husband and started fighting his VA claim for him. It took 6 years, beginning with "we can't locate any record of your service in VN". The VA actually even insisted that he was lying and was never in VN, and his bullet and shrapnel scars were self-inflicted (some on his back, no less)!!! Well I eventually got microfiche of his ops reports, and every detail he'd said about it turned out to be accurate. And those were big ops with lots of records about it, which the military knew full well the whole time.

The buried internal regulations that are referred to in the OP, is where the Executive Agencies do their dirty work. They "interpret" Congress' laws, in a way that negates them. And the only attorneys that go into administrative law, the field specializing is this, work for the government agencies.

[Grinchie]

6. I was a member of the Reagan Military, and I was abandoned utterly

The benefits that were promised were smoke and mirrors. Health care was too scary to even contemplate.

I feel so fortunate that I was able to proceed in life without needing to beg for the rotten table scraps they dish out to Vets.

Even within the service, they fed us contaminated food, housed us in unsanitary barracks, and in one instance, allowed the class in basic training to mob the floor with their personal towels, since they did not provide a mop or a bucket.

When I submitted a critique to the commander regarding the potential health risk vector of dirty towels contaminating our living space, I was "Sent for" and scolded by the commander for breaking the chain of command. We did get our mops, but it was pretty scary getting them.

The Military is just another Big Corporation, externalize the overall costs onto the individual and society without facing up to its responsibilities when it comes to the Health and Welfare of the individuals they take so much from.

I would lay down my life to protect our country from a real threat. Unfortunately, the only threat we have is from the Corporations taking away our choices of Clean Air, Healthy Food, and freedom to do whatever the hell we want, as in promoting a lifetime of debt and servitude.

[happychatter]

7. this started when daddy bush made the VA a cabinet post and politicized the department

Obama will unfuck this mess... hopefully

[Solly Mack]

8. IEDs are roadside bombs...so that should give people an

idea on just how many veterans are being screwed over...

When you consider the number of troops injured and maimed by IEDS..

[tclambert]

9. What do injured vets want? A bailout? You don't see corporate America ever asking for . . .

Oh, wait . . . That's right, the financial companies got $700 Billion. And nobody asked that the top execs have body parts blown off. Hmm. Seems fair the CEOs should sacrifice something.

[hbskifreak]

10. I saw this coming

I didn't even finish reading your post before I diverted to write a letter to my congresswoman. Tomorrow I'll write my two senators, my governor, and both president Bush and President-elect Obama. I've never started an online petition before, but I'm going to get one started promptly.

I saw this coming when a few years ago the official Government position on Gulf War Syndrome is that it didn't exist. I knew immediately that statement was a pre-emptive strike on our current Iraq war veterans.

I recommend everyone write your own elected officials and call them as well. Just bitching about this to each other won't change anything. But as we all saw on November 4th, with some grass roots pushing, anything is possible.

A.

copy of letter:

Honorable Congresswoman ____________,
I have just read an incredibly disturbing story in the LA Times about Iraq War veterans having their Generals in the Pentagon downgrading injuries they received during combat and classifying them as “non-combat” injuries.

Ref: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-combat25-2008nov25,0,3682816.story

This is outrageous, shameful, and insulting. I, as a former Marine and Desert Storm Veteran, request of you, my representative to Congress, to assist in the investigation of this absolute travesty. These brave and honorable military men and women signed on the dotted line and willingly put themselves into harm’s way for our nation, and now our nation just shafted them. It isn’t right, and someone at the Pentagon needs to publicly lose their job over it.

For the Pentagon to make solitary mistakes occasionally may be understandable, if not acceptable. But for this blatant, in-your-face policy shift to occur unchallenged is reprehensible. Please help however you can to fix this.

Sincerely,

____________________
Former Sergeant/USMC