Realities of the war at home

Thank you soooo much for getting these realities in the spotlight!
I can only imagine how much information you must have in overflowing inboxes and full voicemail boxes.
I am glad it has become so clear that this was not merely an isolated incident at one hospital!

It could happen to you . . .

And who holds providers to standards of practice? What motivation could there possibly be for providers to cross a line somewhere and put troops in such a bad position in life.

And why do I believe this story - I SAW IT HAPPEN HERE.
Same type thing, just different names. That practice is so wrong, such a breach of ethical standards it makes my blood boil.

The transition area from Active Duty to Veteran status is a no-man's land. The laws get real fuzzy in there and bureaucratic policies and politics add to the confused process.

I find myself explaining Catch-22's over and over to young troops going through the MEB process and they are baffled by how distorted the whole system is. It's backward, crooked, disorienting. It is not user friendly and somewhere along the way the people involved in the process have developed an attitude that enables the PROCESS, not the TROOP.

It just kills me to watch an MEB officer act "unbiased" as they tell a young, injured soldier "just how easy this will all be if you just sign it now." "Oh, you don't want to take your 10 days to think about it, that just makes things drag on." "Oh no, the DAV rep or VFW rep can't help with THAT, they only do Veteran stuff, they'll help you after you sign."
Bullshit!!
Troops - talk to vet groups, other vets who have been through the system, look online, read the regs. Whatever you do, don't take anything at face value who looks at you like a statistic. Because that's what the system sees - statistics of how many are med-boarded and how fast. If the army can put you out without a medboard, THEY WILL - it's cheaper. And if they can medboard you faster, without proper treatment - THEY WILL - it's cheaper, AND - it makes THEM look better for "healing" you faster. A troop is not supposed to get medboarded until their condition is stable - and the VA doesn't pick up "where the army left off," either.
Getting into the VA for treatment takes time, and with an unstable condition this can mean deterioration and worsening of the condition.
I don't know where things went awry in the medical system, I had a great doc - the MEB office pissed me off, but medically, I got treated well - I was very fortunate to have an awesome doctor. Some of the other providers I have seen are a malpractice suit waiting to happen - oh yeah, FERES, how'd I forget.
I guess a good sign is that if a provider is never available to see civilians at the hospital, there may be a reason. Maybe that's why untrustworthy doctors end up treating all the MEDHOLD soldiers and only the MEDHOLD soldiers.

These docs are treating the most seriously injured troops from war. They're not treating guinea pigs. These troops have families, they have lives. They deserve the BEST care possible. And the doctors must be held to that same standard of accountability that other doctors must uphold.

Plan? What Plan?

When I was in Ranger School I can remember one of the best lessons I ever learned. I was the Platoon Sergeant for a mission and had to write paragraph 4 of the OPORD (Operations Order – this is the tool used by the Army in planning any mission). I barely did anything with the OPORD, that was up to the Platoon Leader to write, I was just going to make sure everyone was awake (food and sleep deprivation at Ranger School made us all want to catch some zz's whenever we could). One of the Ranger Instructors approached me wanting to know what I was doing. I told him I was making sure everyone was awake. He told me to get to work on the OPORD paragraph 4 – that was my job for now. Without skipping a beat he began to explain the importance of the P4 tasks. To that point we had really only focused on Paragraphs 1-3, the actual operation itself. Paragraph 4 was for all the behind the scenes, non-flashy stuff. But Paragraph 4 is probably, as I now know, the most essential Paragraph to the OPORD. This paragraph includes the Medical Evacuation Plan (MEDEVAC). What this RI explained to me was that this Paragraph fueled a soldiers motivation to fight hard and not cower behind his rucksack when the bullets start flying. If a soldier knows that they will be cared for if shot, or worse, the will fight harder knowing that. The Ranger Creed obligates us to “Never leave a fallen comrade,” and the details of the MEDEVAC plan enhance soldiers’ faith that leaders will not only not abandon them, but have a plan to take care of them, especially in the “golden hour,” where life hangs in the balance.

The shittily planned Iraq war had no Paragraph 4. The only large scale logistics have been pocket padding to high-paying politicos. The only MEDEVAC plan is failing. Look only as far as any Army hospital to see the sad state of affairs for wounded soldiers. They are the forgotten ones. Those who live on impaired are forgotten and further punished with he burdens of their injuries and the sketchy medical care they receive. And once the VA takes over – shit, where do I start.

How long will it be before soldiers realize that there is no MEDEVAC plan and they lose the will to fight at all?

Too little too late

Where does the buck stop??
So Weightman was only in Command for 6 months -- who was there 6 months ago and what did they do about this? Those kinds of structural problems don't happen in a few months - we're talking years of abandonment.
What next? What happens after this knee-jerk reaction settles? Will there be follow-up but the administration? Walter Reed is supposed to be the Flag Ship of Army medicine.
Actually the problems at Reed are fairly simple when considering the problems at other hospitals - the ones out of range of national reporting - like here at Ft. Campbell.

These failures are directly linked to the administrations failures in the preparation for war.

You do the math

So Bush wants to take this opportunity to talk about how he has grown the VA budget under his administration -- Way wrong answer for those paying attention. He forgot to mention that the budget increase (decrease) is due to the increased co-pays and the decreased per-vet spending for the VA. The numbers of disabled Vets are growing faster than the budget is increasing, so claiming to increase the budget is BULLSHIT!!

Bush also will emphasize in the address that more than 1 million veterans have been brought into the Veterans Administration health care system since 2001 and that his fiscal 2008 budget proposal includes a request for more than $86 billion for veterans' services, representing a 77 percent increase since he took office.

---Bush Orders Review of Service Members' Care
By William Branigin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 2, 2007; 5:18 PM

WRAMC ain't the first

In September, 2004 I left the 101st Airborne Division and became a MEDDAC soldier in the Medical Hold Company. I was awaiting separation from the Army because of injuries I received while deployed. My wife was also having serious medical problems (BUT THAT'S AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY).
When I came over to the Ft. Campbell Hospital, Blanchfield Army Community Hospital (BACH) I was offered a company command. The Troop Commander, a Major, was an energetic and compassionate leader - I had a great deal of respect for her and wanted to accept the job. Especially after she discussed what my duties and responsibilities would entail:
The Medical Hold barracks were horrible. Much like the ones at WRAMC now featured all over the news they were full of mold, mildew, asbestos, and deteriorating construction - holes in walls, broken window frames - these were not suitable for soldiers. There was no handicap access and no elevators - and, like at WRAMC, these soldiers were severely disabled I walked through these barracks and wanted to help get them fixed.

The Troop Commander had been working on getting these fixed since they had taken command but to no avail.
I did not accept the company command - my wife's health had deteriorated too much. If I took command I would either abandon her, or be in a position where I could let soldiers down - I was not willing to accept either of these outcomes. I helped with the company in a limited capacity and took care of my wife.
The soldier's barracks situation improved before my wife was granted access to the care she needed in order to heal.

When we requested work orders on these dilapidated buildings the housing office would explain that because the barracks were so old, and marked for destruction, funding could not be approved to renovate or otherwise fix the problems. New construction on-post had priority over old construction - understandable - but it didn't address the current housing problems.

Eventually, after many false starts, the Troop Commander found ways to correct the problem as much as possible. She found ways to get repair work done. Some soldiers moved to a hotel off-post. The soldiers got moved to a better building almost a year later. But better than what? What is considered acceptable? They just moved to a somewhat better building. It's still old and falling apart and won't get renovated, either.

AND I KNOW SHE BROUGHT THESES PROBLEMS HIGH UP THE CHAIN OF COMMAND.
She did her job but found little support from above.

But Ft. Campbell is getting a new command center - it looks nice, IT's HUGE!! Lot's of money going into that development.

The Army is about people, soldiers, not about machinery or equipment. What good will that equipment be if there are no more soldiers left to use it?

accountability

Walter Reed's Commander just got canned, NOW WHAT?
In the reports yesterday soldiers at WRAMC were being punished for their leaders' failures. The First Sergeant was fired, and now the 2-star General got fired, too.
I wonder about the people in-between . . .
There is quite a large gap in rank-structure and accountability between the Company 1SG and Hospital Commander.
BUT - the burden of Command is great and a new commander may be the right start. I trust that the investigators will discover many systematic failures as well as human failures in this whole mess - after all, someone has to design, implement, and oversee this broken system.
The President was at WRAMC a few months ago. Having prepared for VIP guests at various-level functions I can assume that the preparations made prior to the President's visit included making sure all the "bad things" were covered over.
So, while I believe our President is failing in many ways, in this instance I would not be surprised if the military shielded themselves from looking bad.
And that just goes back to integrity and the lack there-of at high levels of the military chain of command. The really good leaders, the ones who put their troops before themselves, usually get passed-over and forgotten. But that's another rant for another day.
Instead I am left to ponder what will become of military medicine - this shit storm may be the catalyst of change so desperately needed.
The Army Times is doing a great job tracking the problems with disability ratings and other issues surrounding the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) process.
Hopefully the new governmental leadership will start doing what they were selected to do - fix the broken shit the current administration won't admit is broken.