Posted on 10/17/2003 2:10:36 PM PDT by tomball
FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- 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."
I saw that first hand after I was in. My duty station was attached to an air force base. We worked 6 to 5 minimum, plus field time. The people who did the same job in the air force worked 9 to 4:30. We did PT every morning, and had to qualify running 2 miles. They did PT on their own, if they wanted, and had to qualify at 1 1/2 mile at more time than we had to do 2. They had carpeted barracks, we buffed floors every day.
They had a Burger King on base, we had... the PX. Air Force is for softies. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
That in no way makes it right. This is 2003, not 1903.
Ask yourself if any of that $87 billion the administration just asked for, is going to these troops. With all the waste in that $87 billion, it wouldn't hurt to throw a million or two at local civilian doctors and nurses and get them some kind of treatment or processed out of the military.
We're talking about a three week period here in the article though that treatment wasn't available. This isn't unusual. Note, the reporter didn't say why treatment wasn't available. Journalists skew facts as much through what they decide not to tell as by what they do. For what it's worth, I had to wait two years for treatment.
You become a budget issue, not a soldier who served for 27 years
And this is different from normal American life how?
Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.
Guys in bunk beds? Well, look. Maybe this sounds horrid to you, but I just don't see it. I lived many many moons in these types of conditions. Best time of my life. What's wrong with bunk beds? It's better than the floor. Congress can say what they want- they're full of it anyway. What's next? Conditions in Basic are too harsh because each soldier doesn't have his own personal room?
If they are on crutches, chances are some have open wounds that are draining ar whatever.
Why? Most people who get crutches (in my experience) have sprained ligaments in the ankle or knee. Even me with torn ligaments- I didn't have open wounds. This is pure speculation on your part.
Look, I will say it again as I have said it before- I am absolutely certain there are soldiers there with legitimate complaints. But I don't buy for one second on this scant info that something grave and terrible is happening here. What the reporter describes sounds like totally normal Army life to me.
Yeah. Lariam/Mefloquine does have some weird effects though. I never have bad dreams -- but on that crap I did. On the other hand, you can definitely die from malaria, so I took it. But it gives you pause when one of the recognised side effects of a med is psychosis (in a very small number of users).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F - no malaria, not psychotic. Not much anyway.
It didnt sound horrid to me. Most of the time I was on submarines, I had to hotbunk with three people to 2 bunks. They were alot smaller than these, and often had high pressure hydraulic/air/oxygen valves inside them that could burst and kill you. I never saw trees, we had no windows, and it stunk to high heaven. The diesels would suck the snot out your nose when the head valve shut while we were snorkeling. I handled that, so I can handle this part with no problem. You are right there, bunks are part of the military experience.
Why? Most people who get crutches (in my experience) have sprained ligaments in the ankle or knee. Even me with torn ligaments- I didn't have open wounds. This is pure speculation on your part
You base your experience on torn ligaments and you ahve stressed that point several times. I base my point on trauma injuries, which I suffered, which did have to be drained and cleaned. I guess we both use our own experiences to translate the article.
I personally believe soldiers should be paid more than senators. When we find a way to do this, let me know. If it were up to me, a senator would have to pay us for the job- not vice versa. You want to increase retention and the morale of soldiers in the combat zone? Double pay immediately for all soldiers. Quadruple it for those deployed. Quintuple it for those deployed in a combat area. Make all soldiers' salaries tax free- period.
Now, do we have the money for that? No.
But again, these conditions as described are not that harsh. Not in my experience. For every notch we raise the bar of "quality of life" for soldiers, the more life in a place like Iraq is going to seem unbearable to them when in reality people have survived in worse situations for centuries on end. Soldiers have to be able to endure situations that the normal person would find completely intolerable. Sleeping in bunks and cinder block buildings is not intolerable by any stretch of the imagination.
Generally, that's true. In most cases when an airman has to serve with the Army he is given a stipend to make up for the substandard conditions. There are a few exceptions, like the air controllers who live with the Army all the time.
We had some air controllers, and a combat weather guy, at our camp. The wx guy got the squalor money, and the air controllers (next bunk over) got bupkus. It was almost like being in the Army for them -- heck, you could even get killed.
Like your prof, I also recommend the Air Force to young men and women. The Army simply doesn't value its people, especially enlisted people. And that is based on 8 years active, 8 Reserve, and 8 Guard -- and counting.
That said, did anybody else think it's weird that the report talks about a squalid barracks and quotes two senior NCOs? (E-7 and E-8). WTF, over? Whose exact responsibility....
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I agree totally. And I know some are probably just loafing away with BS wounds as a form of malingering. I am addressing the guys who need to be there, not them.
Fair enough. But the information provided in the article lends weight to neither view. I would reserve judgement until I knew more. And one thing about Drudge- he's into yellow journalism- but now that he's put this on his site, it will get some more play. I guarantee it. Some democrat is on his way to investigate this as we speak.
That depends. If my experience is anything to go on, the suffering of the guys who were named in the article is just beginning. By now the commander of Fort Stewart will have thrown a tantrum and the tantrum will be making its way down the chain of command with the inevitability of gravity.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Nope. Good leadership and consistency. If senior officers simply treated soldiers like human beings it would be a humongous step forward. But if you just lead soldiers well, they will follow you through any hardship. And if you are visibly even-handed and consistent with it, they'll love you for it.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Well, for me it would be money. I always enjoyed being deployed because of the money. While deployed I saved enough money to buy a home. I can say unashamedly I wouldn't have been half as gung-ho working for minimum wage even if Patton had been my commander.
And pesonally, I think the military is a treasure trove of great leadership. Consistency is another issue but I am having to temper my attitude on this as we face no consistent enemy. Things are evolving rapidly, a smart soldier in this day and age will make no concrete assumptions.
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