There has been much fanfare by the politicians about the mess at Walter Reed for the past few weeks since Dana priest and Anne Hull of the Washington Post released their story "The other Walter Reed" and yesterday finally saw the resignation of the key idiot at the heart of it, LT General Kevin Kiley, it is my understanding that he is to be retired at the permanent rank of Major General and he ends his career in disgrace, a fitting end to a "kiss azz" life.
But the real horror story to be brought into the light as a by product of this, is the system the military used to assign disability ratings to injured/wounded/medically unfit service members. The Navy awards about 30% medical retirements, the Air Force about 25% and the Army is near 4% WHY? The Army has the largest force in the war zone and the most wounded and disabled yet, they have the lowest percentage of medical retirements, it doesn't make sense.
These following articles I have found hopefully will bring a better understanding to all who read them, it doesn't justify the inequities, but you will see how they are messing up these veterans and their families lives by these decisions of life changing consequences.
The Army Times has this input:
Many more soldiers than airmen, Marines or sailors also were placed on the temporarily disabled list, which has proven controversial because people can languish on the list for up to five years waiting for a final decision on whether they will remain in the military. Service members also can be placed on temporary disability pay until their injuries stabilize and may then be processed out of the military with a lower rating or severance pay.
In the Army, 1,544 soldiers were placed on temporary disability in 2006. In the Air Force, that number was 482. For the Navy and Marines, 1,700 people were temporarily retired.
And, in 2006, 760 soldiers were separated without any pay or benefits; 304 airmen were separated without pay or benefits; and 277 sailors and Marines were separated without any pay or benefits.
Army officials have said one reason the physical evaluation process takes many months is because they hope to eventually return soldiers to duty. But in 2006, 964 soldiers were found fit after going through the process — only about 9 percent of those who went through the physical evaluation board.
For Air Force, 1,707 airmen were found fit, about 42 percent of those who went through the process.
For the Navy and Marines, 1,300 people were found fit, about 24 percent of those who went through the process.
Then there is this link to the statistics to show the difference between the ratings awarded to enlisted and officers, can a wounded enlisted person live cheaper that a wounded officer, NO. http://www.armytimes.com/...
After digging through five years of reports from the Department of Defense Office of the Actuary, Military Times found the average payment for a disabled Air Force officer in 2005 was $2,604 per month, about $600 more than the Army’s average. For enlisted airmen, the average payment was $926 per month, compared to an average of about $770 per month for enlisted soldiers. Enlisted Marines averaged $753 a month.
Military Times also compared the disability ratings of officers and enlisted members above 50 percent. From 2003, the year the Iraq war began, through 2005, the latest year for which data is available, the proportion of officers who received disability retirement ratings of 50 percent or more — and the comparatively larger retirement checks that come with them — significantly outpaced the proportion of enlisted members who received similar ratings.
The smallest gap was in the Marine Corps, where 30 percent of injured officers received disability ratings of 50 percent or higher from 2003 through 2005, compared to 20 percent of injured enlisted members, a difference of 10 percentage points.
The Army and Air Force had 12-point gaps. But the difference was most stark in the Navy — 39 percent of injured officers got ratings of 50 percent or higher, compared to 22 percent of injured enlisted members.
Those numbers may reflect a greater deference shown to officers going through the system, as well as the possibility that officers are more knowledgeable about the system and can better advocate for themselves.
If you go to the above website they have a graph that show the monetary pay differences, they are drastic.
The VFW National Commander has this opinion about what he terms as a "broken claims processing system"
VFW Commander-in-Chief Gary Kurpius, of Anchorage, Alaska, said it was broken because VA has an unmanageable backlog of more than 800,000 claims, that it takes a half year for a claims rating, and that more than 100,000 claims are decided wrongly every year, or one in every eight.
"It is unacceptable, because each delay and every wrong decision have real human costs," he said. "Fixing the Veterans Benefits Administration is important because the VBA is the gateway to all of VA. No disabled veteran should have to wait for benefits many of them need to care for themselves and their families."
Then the Honolulu Advertiser has this
article about the claims process
Q. What is the impact on veterans from the long time it takes the VA to rule on the disability compensation claims?
A. They're looking for benefits that will compensate them for their disabilities that they received as a result of their military service.
In many cases, that may be the only income they have coming in at the time, and the longer that is delayed, the harder it is for them to get their lives back on track and to take care of their families.
Q. What happens when disabled veterans face long delays in receiving their disability compensation?
A. In many cases, a veteran will become homeless because of the delays in getting those monetary benefits.
It could cause bankruptcy and other financial hardships.
This March 12 Editorial by Tucson Citizen explains their reasons for calling for change in the veterans system.
This Opinion Piece by the Penascola News Journal tells why they feel it is time for change in the way this nation treats veterans sseking and deserving compensation.
Whatever the reason, it is wrong.
Today, of course, the problem is growing. The Bush administration's failure to understand how long and costly the Iraq War would be left it unprepared for the volume of wounded and disabled veterans the war has produced.
Ironically, improved front-line combat health care and body armor means more soldiers are surviving battlefield wounds; and that means more disability cases, especially with more soldiers surviving explosions that in past wars would have been fatal.
Already this year, almost 30,000 new cases have arisen, in part because of the war.
With the nation at war, how can this kind of treatment of veterans be tolerated by Congress and the White House?
President Bush and members of his administration have had harsh words for critics of the war in Iraq, equating such criticism to failure to support the troops. But they have been in charge of veterans' health care -- a real, tangible failure to support the troops.
These men and women went to war under the impression that their nation would take care of them if, in that service, they suffered disabling wounds.
This needs to be fixed, and now.
The only place this really can be corrected is by the House and the Senate, it is finally time to demand Congress do their job of oversight on these issues, which both parties have largely ignored for decades, the Democratic party could win many new voters of active duty and veterans and their families, if they demand a fix to this immediately and create the legislation needed to show who really supports the troops. Supporting the troops is not just a Republican issue, it is an American issue, and this is the time for the Democrats to step up and show America how they can lead.
To many disabled veterans such as myself and many of my friends this is not a new experience, we have been fighting the system for years if not decades. There are many veterans websites that help each other in their quest for benefits, the ones I visit the most are
http://www.hadit.com
http://www.gulfwarvets.com and we share experinces in the forum areas of the websites