Veterans' health care system fails Gretna Marine

[unhappycamper]

Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick, 25, of Terrytown lost a leg in a roadside bomb in Iraq. He is being featured in an HBO movie September 9 on amputee soldiers. He was 22 when he was injured. Schick said winding his way through the healthcare maze to get his benefits has been frustrating. "To get anything done, it is just horrible," said Schick.


Veterans' health care system fails Gretna Marine
Posted by Bill Walsh, Washington bureau September 08, 2007 9:55PM


WASHINGTON -- Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick says he was ready to die in Iraq. He wasn't prepared to come home in pieces.

The bomb that tore through the floor of his Humvee in the fall of 2004 shredded his legs and left arm. Forty-six surgeries later, Schick is an amputee still learning to cope with physical limitations that as a star high school athlete he never dreamed he would face.

Perhaps just as daunting has been learning to navigate the veterans' health care system, which he says demeans the sacrifice of all veterans.

"When you have to deal with the VA (Veterans Affairs) or TRICARE (the federal health insurance program), you feel beaten down," Schick said. "You are a number, and you feel like a number. It's a total, total beat-down."

Schick, 25, who grew up in Texas and Louisiana and now lives in Gretna, is one of the 10 injured veterans featured in an HBO film, "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," that airs tonight. The title of the documentary, produced by "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, refers to the date that the injured narrowly escape death and realize that they are still alive.

~snip~

The brutal flip side is that minus arms, legs, fingers, ears, eyes, faces or mental capacity, an "Alive Day" also marks the date that a life changes unalterably, when basic human functions become torturous, often demeaning challenges and when the world defines you by your missing parts


Rest of article at: http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/veterans_health_care_system_fa.html

[babylonsister]

1. 'Alive Day'. Not so much for many of them; one asked why should

he highlight and celebrate the worst day of his life? I believe that was the vet with the t-shirt that read, "Stumpy" who resembled Max Cleland-minus an arm and both legs. :(