Posted on 12/03/2004 12:27:16 AM PST by Former Military Chick
Precedent-wary Army must weigh capability
Chuck Bartles took heart when President Bush pinned a Purple Heart to his chest this year, lauding him for courage and determination despite grievous wounds.
Sgt. Bartles, then struggling to recover from having his right arm blown off in Iraq, felt even better when Bush walked out of the hospital ward and made a stirring speech.
Just because a soldier has lost a leg or an arm in combat, the president said, doesn’t mean he’s useless. "People are no longer forced out of the military," he declared to applause. "Today, if wounded service members want to remain in uniform and can do the job, the military tries to help them stay."
Sparkling words. Easy words.
Inaccurate words.
Swiveling behind a machine gun atop a Humvee, Bartles was wounded in October 2003 by a roadside bomb blast that killed a fellow soldier. A civil affairs specialist with a master’s degree, fluency in Russian and a Bronze Star for heroism in battle, he’s the kind of man the Army would want to keep. He sweated for months to qualify for duty. This summer, his Army doctors finally certified him fit. His commander wanted him back. It seemed a sure thing.
Jubilant, Bartles re-enlisted. The next day he got a form letter from the Army. "Your medical condition prevents satisfactory performance of duty," it said, announcing the verdict: "permanent disability."
Bartles, 26, is fighting that judgment. But it’s a solitary struggle against pain, frustration, complex regulations and policies, competing bureaucracies and faceless paper-stampers. "Nobody can give you a straight answer," he said. "It’s kind of put me on edge."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
ping
"Your medical condition prevents satisfactory performance of duty"
A guy would go back with one arm gone.....For God's sake!...find a place for him!......He has more heart in it than someone with ten arms!!!.......
No use? Watch, the US will train another GI at ten times the cost.
Exactomundo!....Your taxpayers dollars at work.......
those master's degrees scare the brass I guess...
wouldn't want a brainiac to end up in an accounting oversight role, where he might actually find ways to get more for our guys in the field, using less tax dollars from the folks at home, making us all safer and stronger as a nation, or something stupid like that. now would we?
wouldn't want a war casualty to have any input in the procurement process?
this guy has a purpose in his life. we need to let him find it in the us military service.
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