U.S. Soldiers With Missing Limbs Allowed To Return To Active Duty

[The Straight Story]

U.S. Soldiers With Missing Limbs Allowed To Return To Active Duty

SAN ANTONIO -- In the blur of smoke and blood after a bomb blew up under his Humvee in Iraq, Sgt. Tawan Williamson looked down at his shredded leg and knew it couldn't be saved. His military career, though, pulled through.

Less than a year after the attack, Williams is running again with a high-tech prosthetic leg and plans to take up a new assignment, probably by the fall, as an Army job counselor and affirmative action officer in Okinawa, Japan.

In an about-face by the Pentagon, the military is putting many more amputees back on active duty -- even back into combat, in some cases.

Williamson, a 30-year-old Chicago native who is missing his left leg below the knee and three toes on the other foot, acknowledged that some will be skeptical of a maimed soldier back in uniform.

"But I let my job show for itself," he said. "At this point, I'm done proving. I just get out there and do it."

Previously, a soldier who lost a limb almost automatically received a quick discharge, a disability check and an appointment with the Veterans Administration.

http://www.local6.com/spotlight/13413279/detail.html

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Jesus! Some people never learn.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. When it is the only way you can draw a paycheck

you do what you have to do.

If he didn't go back, they would have declared his injury a "pre-existing condition", kicked him out of the military and demanded he pay back his enlistment bonus.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Or maybe malingering. Faking a missing limb.

Reminiscent of the Civil War. Lots of one-armed and one-legged officers kept serving. The question that crossed my mind in the current case, though, was whether they are being REQUIRED to stay on duty as long as they can perform some function. Then the image leaped to mind of a quad-amputee aircraft mechanic lying under a plane on a gurney and turning a wrench with his teeth.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. I wish I could dismiss that as

sarcasm. I really do.

[Captain Hilts]

4. They WANT to. I volunteer at Bethesda Naval and donate platelets at WRAMC....

many have survivor guilt and others take seriously their duty to their colleagues.

[benddem]

5. amputees have been

allowed to remain in the military if not earlier...since the 60's. I've known several. If they can fulfill the physical requirement.

[Javaman]

6. Exactly, this is nothing new. In fact, historically, it's pretty common.

Many a general in the civil war and first world wars were amputees. Not sure about WWII but I wouldn't be surprised.

[StarryNite]

7. I think some of them are trying

to justify their loss in their own minds. By going back they are in effect saying it was worth the loss of limb and they would do it again. That it was for that noble cause that * speaks of. Either that or they suffered some kind of brain injury at the same time.



:shrug: