Troops risk ruin while awaiting benefit checks

[unhappycamper]

Kino Heine, 12, holds a photo of her father and mother, Paula and Simon Heine, at her Operation Homefront apartment in San Antonio. At right, from left, are Kino's brother, Kiboi, 3, mother, Paula, brother J.J., 5, and sister, Quiana, 8. Simon Heine served three tours in Iraq as a tank mechanic before he was discharged with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Paula quit college so she could figure out how her four children could live on less than $1,000 a month. Eventually, she moved the family of six into an Operation Homefront apartment so they could finish navigating the bureacracy and wait out the arrival of Social Security and VA benefits.


Troops risk ruin while awaiting benefit checks
By Michelle Roberts - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 17, 2008 6:02:28 EDT

SAN ANTONIO — His lifelong dream of becoming a soldier had, in the end, come to this for Isaac Stevens: 28, penniless, in a wheelchair, fending off the sexual advances of another man in a homeless shelter.

Stevens’ descent from Army private first class in 3rd Infantry Division began in 2005 — not in battle, since he was never sent off to Iraq or Afghanistan, but with a headfirst fall over a wall on the obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. He suffered a head injury and spinal damage.

The injury alone didn’t put him in a homeless shelter. Instead, it was military bureaucracy — specifically, the way injured service members are discharged on just a fraction of their salary and then forced to wait six to nine months, and sometimes even more than a year, before their full disability payments begin to flow.

“When I got out, I hate to say it, but man, that was it. Everybody just kind of washed their hands of me, and it was like, ‘OK, you’re on your own,’ ” said Stevens, who was discharged in November and was in a shelter by February. He has since moved into a temporary San Antonio apartment with help from Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization.

Nearly 20,000 disabled soldiers were discharged in the past two fiscal years, and lawmakers, veterans’ advocates and others say thousands could be facing financial ruin while they wait for their claims to be processed and their benefits to come through.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/06/ap_wounded_soldiers_061608/

[midnight]

1. I'm sure if the Pentagon could find that 2.3 trillion they lost,

the military wouldn't give our soldiers the idea that they were washing their hands of them. The military could step up to the plate and give these soldiers that care they need. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x140946