Posted on 06/05/2017 6:11:11 AM PDT by huldah1776
In January 2013, Sgt. Joe Schicker was Missouri’s hero.
A member of the Missouri National Guard, he had been injured while deployed in Afghanistan. When he returned to Missouri, none other than Gov. Jay Nixon pinned the Purple Heart on Schicker’s battle fatigues. Then Schicker stood in the House gallery in his dress blues as Nixon gave his annual State of the State address and received a standing ovation from state lawmakers.
***snip***
Four years later, Master Sgt. Joseph Schicker is a forgotten man.
Today, he can’t talk without shaking. He gets dizzy and has headaches. He’s missing his two front teeth from a fall. He’s had 26 pieces of shrapnel removed from his body from that Oct. 15, 2012, attack.
“I’m 57 years old, and I can’t type. I can’t drive,” he says. “I just feel like I’ve been wounded and no one wants to help me.”
Shortly after Schicker returned from Afghanistan, this time without the cameras running and the governor gushing, he was demoted. It wasn’t because of anything he did wrong. Schicker was a full-time Guardsman, paid at the Army’s E-8 rank, assigned to the Homeland Response Force at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. This is the unit that does highly technical work sweeping Busch Stadium before big events, for instance. It was one of the first Guard units on the scene in Ferguson.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
BY THE WAY, this week the Senators vote on the Veterans First Act. Some controversy with it but I haven't read all the details yet.
President Trump's heart and thinking are in the right direction on this one (and others) .... we just rarely get the details.
The National Guard, like all bureaucracies has a culture.
You have to learn that culture and live it in order to get ahead.
That culture is in the state. It is shaped by the state. That culture is not found on overseas battlefields.
The culture that is in the state is actually quite frightened by Soldiers who have been on the overseas battlefield.
Yes it is overwhelmed. Which makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be better to free vets to go to civilian hospitals for specific issues that do not require military only healing. I can see that wounds and battle specific illnesses would be better cared for with experience, but not all.
Trump did sign an executive order for firing VA employees who need to go, but it must be made permanent and the VA Accountability First Act should have been passed if the congress critters were serious about reform.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/27/trump-creates-accountability-office-at-va.html
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1259
In my Vietnam era guard unit, there was no lack of appreciation for those that had gone to Vietnam or been activated to a state side replacement unit. That was about 50-50 of those that had been in as the entire Kansas Infantry Brigade were activated. After deployment and return, some of the ranks of early-outs were filled by new guys, some by active duty reservists fillling out their six years or staying for 20. One was a Navy Corpsman who had won the CMOH and he ended up staying about 30 years as I recall.
The Active duty guys were the central core of who lead the in-crowd in non-active service.
If all the vets with service connected issues (only!) were given vouchers for treatment at “civilian” hospitals, everyone would be better off.
Yup.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Once you have been in combat you realize how stupid 90% of the garrison crap is. The Guard, like every organization, wants people that don’t make waves. So when you start complaining about how training time is being wasted on stupid shit, those who haven’t been in combat don’t want to hear it.
I was at a commander’s call soon after my first deployment and our Assistant Adjutant General was giving a speech. During it he said, “We have some great combat leaders that need to improve and refocus to be great garrison leaders.” I kept my mouth shut but I really wish I had had the courage to raise my hand and stand up and say “With all due respect General, our job is to fight and win the nation’s wars, if the skills to be a successful garrison leader is so much different than being a successful combat leader, then it is garrison that needs to change. Because if you send a great garrison leader into combat who is not a good combat leader, you will get people killed.”
Afterwards talking to my fellow officer’s all of us that had seen combat thought the general was wrong.
That’s why I was irate about the management agreement in the pubbies healthcare bill. Forcing veterans into the va death chambers in their neediest times. Non citizens.. well they get choices and free stuff VETERANS, they get to wait for care... waiting til death. Bernie sanders left one heck of a va legacy.
But, but, he worked with McCain “to enact the Veterans’ Access, Choice and Accountability Act of 2014, the most comprehensive veterans’ legislation in decades.”/sigh
The Veterans First Act is so long they won’t know where to start.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/2921
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/legislation/issue/veterans
Prayers for the gentleman.
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