Posted on 02/07/2006 11:44:45 AM PST by iPod Shuffle
February 07, 2006
Soldier pays for armor # Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded
By Eric Eyre Staff writer
The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.
A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.
But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago. - advertisement - Find a job today.
He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.
He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.
Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.
“I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter,” Rebrook said. “They took it off me and burned it.”
But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.
Rebrook’s mother, Beckie Drumheler, said she was saddened — and angry — when she learned that the Army discharged her son with a $700 bill. Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wvgazette.com ...
So don't get out of the Army for a few more months. What's the big deal? His monthly pay for a few months extra service surely is more than $700. Stay in a few months, let them clear it up, if they don't then he's got the extra pay to cover it. As a convalescing soldier, he won't have any duties.
Do you really think this snafu would be cleared up without this article? The soldier says that his higher ups basically told him they didn't want to get involved.
Yes, the Army is stupid, but these things eventually get corrected.
I find it interesting that Sheets was demogogueing on the floor of the Senate about this issue instead of making a 2 minute phone call to fix this.
Oh sure, every person involved in the emergency treatment and transport of a gravely wounded soldier has obtained and recorded the name of the soldier before passing him along. Gimme a break.
When an army medic crew comes upon a group of U.S. soldiers who have been wounded and/or killed by an IED, they grab the bodies and run with them. When they drop them at the nearest medical treatment facility, they may or may not have 30 seconds to do paperwork before heading out for another emergency rescue of gravely wounded soldiers. And wounded soldiers may or may not still have any identifying material on their persons -- explosions which blow limbs off can blow off dogtags and uniform name badges too. If medics evacuate a group of severely wounded soldiers, they shouldn't give a second's thought to which ones' armor they tore off and threw aside in order to save the wearer's life.
Any U.S. serviceman/woman who is wounded in action severely enough that they require emergency transport for medical treatment, should be assumed to have lost all uniforms and equipment in the course of performing their duties, and not owe anybody a penny for them.
It would have been common knowledge for an officer. I can't believe that he *never* did a report of survey while he was in the Army.
True...Some over eager bean counter who feels he/she is the vanguard of the taxpayer is the problem here. Like I said someone had to sign off on the paperwork to garnish this guys pay. It is not official policy to have service members pay for equipment damage/lost in combat even though the Dems love to mythbuild that Bush/Cheney directed this.
True, however...one of the first things an officer gets hit with upon getting to his first unit is doing reports of survey. They almost always fall to the most junior officer since everyone hates doing them LOL....I know I sure as hell hated them.
In most units, that's SOP for everything except "sensitive items" like guns, radios, and night-vision goggles. Those items are supposed to be consolidated at the battalion aid station, or at Charlie Med if the soldier gets evacked straight to brigade.
It would have been common knowledge for an officer. I can't believe that he *never* did a report of survey while he was in the Army.
Maybe. Most of the time the officers just hand it to an NCO and have him deal with it, then the officer just signs it. Also, he was a 1LT. Officers don't start growing brains until they become a CPT(P). Then they lose them again when they get their first star.
That's a hardship in and of itself. LOL.
For lots of things, yes -- but I never handed off a report of survey for one of my NCOs to do. They had enough to do already.
It was part of our unit's SOP in Iraq to write off equipment that was "combat-loss, unrecoverable". Unfortunately, I signed a bunch of these. Usually something blown off a vehicle or burned/destroyed by enemy fire. If this kid went through a BAS, they cut everything off him and bagged it. We were required to send body armor and Kevlar helmets with the casualty for examination. Vests were never burned at our (BN TF) level.
Quick report of survey, and it's done...there is more to this story...
Regards,
That never stopped my platoon leader, or CO, or Sqdn Cdr for that matter. Usually, when doing the Report of Survey, I found that the soldier in question was building themselves a nice Snap-On tool kit, for home use, by trying to claim "field loss" after a gunnery.
I wouldn't go through a Chaplin's office. First off, he's not likely to say anything. Second, that quirky little mustache makes me not trust him.
The issue came up when the wounded soldier was leaving. One year later, when the soldier's going home, the Army pulled some crap. They discover missing paperwork. Paperwork that the soldier's not responsible for. The fact is that the soldier's vest was trash due to the explosion that wrecked his arm, never mind the biohazard. That's undeniable. For it not to have been fixed immediately at Ft Hood is unforgivable. If the Army cares so much for the damn vest they can hire a Capt Queeg to go hunt it down.
The man was charged $700 for a vest lost in combat. It's a valid story. If the Army doesn't like the bad publicity, then they should act like decent American's and refrain from screwing their wounded like this.
Already been done by a lefty blog.
We raised $5,000 for the body armor, we more than covered it, thank you!
Thanks for your service, Thunder 6.
Being a mech infantryman, I've seen that particular game a time or twelve myself.
The article does not pass the smell test.
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