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| This Is Outrageous |
| 2003-10-18 |
| Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait — sometimes for months — to see doctors. The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers’ living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day. "I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen." Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen since doubling over in pain there. After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi. "They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said. One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart — home of the famed Third Infantry Division — as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses. The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits — if any — they should get as a result. Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment. The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold. "It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two — Army and Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment. A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not returned. Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior to military service. Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack. Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper. They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick people. "I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to Iraq and asked that his name not be used. That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten steadily worse. He shakes uncontrollably. He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson’s Disease and it was a pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax shots the Army gave him. "They say I have Parkinson’s, but it is developing too rapidly," he said. "I did not have a problem until I got those shots." First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles. Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in 17 minutes at 48 years old. But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus. He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him. Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there. Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide. Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder block barracks. He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11. He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the Army Reserves. "Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said. Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait. "The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six weeks ago with a serious back injury. He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he said. Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in Iraq. "There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can’t perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said. "Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said, gesturing to the bunks. "There are people here who got back in April but did not get their surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families." The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves. In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of the backbone of the military. "Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror," Bush said. "And you’re making your state and your country proud." |
| Posted by:tipper. |
| #6 Reservists generally are last in line for medical services (ahead of retirees). Since we have just completed a major callup, I am not surprised that there a few that are on medical hold. The service won't release them to civilian life or back to active callup until they can determine how bad they are. Since there are still a lot of Medical personnel in Southwest Asia they are just going to have to wait. At least they are not a retiree like me. I am in line behind them. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-10-18 10:36:58 PM |
| #5 I know the military medical service isn't the best. It's a pain in the rear during good times, and these are definitely NOT good times. The conditions they describe remind me of temporary holding quarters for "walking wounded" medical evacuation personnel in Frankfurt. There may be other such places elsewhere. Fort Stewart is NOT a garden spot at best (My SIL was stationed there during GWI, and deployed with the 24th ID). Yet these are better quarters than I stayed in at Cam Rahn Bay in 1971, during an evaluation. Right now, the entire military system, from top to bottom, is stressed - badly stressed. The local clinic has six doctors deployed to Europe to help with wounded. Getting a routine appointment is difficult, and could end with a waiting period of a month or more. Here in Colorado Springs (hope of part of the 3rd ID), the local hospital uses a large number of contract physicians to fill the gaps, and it's STILL a long wait. As for evaluation of physical conditions for disability retirement, I began processing my paperwork to upgrade my disability in December, 1999. We're still at it. None of that's handled by the active military - it's all done through the Veterans' Administration. VA Hospitals have been a horror story for several decades. If these conditions were at a VA medical facility, it would make a lot more sense - those facilities usually aren't set up to house people even overnight, much less for a long stay. Military medical services need improvement, but nothing like the major revamping and overhauling (including firing a bunch of incompetent middle managers) that the VA needs. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-10-18 8:32:32 PM |
| #4 If this is true then perhaps they should claim to be illegal aliens....then they will get instant medical treatment for free. Pretty sad I know... |
| Posted by: GregJ 2003-10-18 5:49:32 PM |
| #3 The Instapundit has attempted to contact the appropriate official. Might be worth waiting for further details before commenting. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-18 5:09:46 PM |
| #2 This sounds like BS to me. If I call tri-care and complain of a "sore throat", they tell me that they are "out of appointments" until a date in the future. But if I break my leg or complain of difficulty breathing, they can see me the next day or in the emergency room. Sounds like someone got wind of the "out of appointments" and is desperately trying to make it into an issue. It's been like that for a long time. The examples here are weak. ""They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said. As for the example of "Parkinson's Disease", once again it sounds like they are presented with a condition and they aren't quite sure what is happening. Oh...like either of those situations NEVER happens in a civilian hospital. If these are the best two examples the reporter could come up with, it's all pretty weak if you ask me. As for the living conditions, it sounds like they aren't great - but that they have moved the excess patients into the training barracks due to lack of space. Sounds like the situation could be improved - so good, let them use this as their negative propaganda. Hopefully the end result will be money allocated to improve the situation. That's ok by me. |
| Posted by: B 2003-10-18 5:00:54 PM |
| #1 Is this for real? I'm a little sceptical. This would be a pretty juicy story for the liberal media. Why haven't they been all over it? I'll belive this stuff when I read some corroborating reports, but right now I'm not buying it. It sounds too much like an updated fictional account of those scenes from Oliver Stone's "Born on the 4th of July". |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2003-10-18 2:14:01 PM |