A sample of four still isn’t a sample until we know why the person picked those.
Just going from that quote, it sounds equally plausible that the doctors are acting on their own to get soldiers out of there.
But still my point isn’t as to the validity of Zoe’s interjection. It was that you were skipping past it and shrugging people off as losers for trying to correct mistakes you might have made. If you think your original title was correct, then you should have brought out your cites, rather than calling names.
To be honest, a mental issue like a multiple personality disorder may not come to the surface until the person is under extreme duress, like getting shot at.
I say, if it wasn’t exposed before they enlisted, or during training (which is pretty stressful) then they can’t come back later and insist that the person (for sure) had this condition (and knew about it) before they enlisted.
This is just ridiculous.
Expecially the part about wounded soldiers getting cut off from benefits. It shouldn’t matter one way or the other what conditions you have when you get wounded in battle. It’s too late, you’re wounded in battle. The End. Pay up.
Now, if they were booting UNwounded soldiers from active duty 'cause of some personality disorder then I’d not see a problem.
So an article has no weight unless it reports the experiences of every soldier discharged on a 5-13? You are grasping at reasons to dismiss this exposé, bordering on denial.
I’d just like to chime in to clear up a few misconceptions people might have.
Getting wounded does not entitle someone to any kind of benefit on the face of it. If a soldier is wounded and heals properly and returns to full duty, the only thing he’ll get for that unpleasant experience is a Purple Heart.
The issue is with military disability pay, which you do not necessarily need to be wounded to rate upon discharge. I’ve known people who have rated partial disability claims for everything from bad backs to bad knees, and I was being evaluated for a disability claim when I got out because of hearing loss.
Now, obviously I feel that anyone who has any kind of disability or difficulty stemming from their military service ought to get as much help as possible. However, this isn’t always the easiest thing to secure. Veterans from past wars were routinely screwed over on the benefits due them to the point that VFW and American Legion posts all around the country trained service officers to help their members and other vets deal with the bureaucracy.
I don’t want this to happen any more than anyone else, but sadly this is a pattern of behavior that goes back quite a few wars. Pinning this on just the current administration, culpable though they may be, serves to minimize the problem, in my opinion, and also serves to make it a partisan issue when it is far bigger and far worse than that.
Both of you may well be simply too dumb to remember to breathe.
I’m not applauding the situation nor the administration’s overall flawed record with respect to care of soldiers – a record that is nonetheless hardly unique to a single administration of either political stripe.
I was using sarcasm to applaud the efforts of Zoe to inject a little critical thinking into the criticism, a qulaity which seems to vanish from your benighted forebrain the moment the opportunity to criticize Bush appears.
Even if Bush has murdered 101 dalmation puppies in order to give Laura a nice fur coat, I believe there’s value in refuting false claims that he’s also clubbed baby seals.
You, on the other hand, collectively seem to feel that since he’s EEEEVIL anyway, we really don’t need to worry about the specific accuracy of the particular evils he’s accused of.
**Zoe ** made claims about my OP that simply weren’t true; no where did I claim that all those discharged on a 5-13 were injured in Iraq. Not in the title, and not in the OP. Any conclusion to that effect was conjured solely in the minds of those who desperately wished it to be so.
So, when you drive through a thread and mutter some support for misguided criticism, it becomes abundantly clear you are the one lacking the grey matter required to form any cogent argument of your own.
Well, sure, friend Bricker, but after a while it gets to be like defending Jeffrey Dahmer in regards to health code violations: “Sure, those were human parts in the fridge, but they were kept in conditions of strict compliance with sanitary standards.”
If you want to make (again) the point that GeeDub comes into undue criticism for minor errors as a result of colossal up-fucks that damage his, ahem, “reputation”, you have a point. A very small one. Hardly worth flogging the electrons to do your bidding.
Granted. But it is one, and such an analysis as I have suggested will be helpful in determining who needs to get strung up by the testicles for making it one.
Those kinds of discharges are not done by “The Army”. They’re initiated at the battalion or brigade level. Much lower down the ladder, and by people who have actually worked with the person.
And as was mentioned, these discharges are done very often in Basic Training. Hell, just the other day some kid freaked out on a range in basic and had to be subdued and taken to the psych. He’ll likely be discharged for a pre-existing mental issue and be added to your stats. But he’s not part of some great conspiracy. Too bad the number in the article didn’t say what percent of those discharges were done during initial entry training. Probably because when the answer came back at like 98%, it would ruin their little theory.
There are thousands and thousands of NON-COMBAT related medical boards where soldiers are trying to get classified with disability and collect money for the rest of their lives. Tons… likely way more than the combat disabilities. If the Army wanted to save some money, cutting these people off would be the best place to start. And and would be the least PR nightmare if their plan came to light. Better to deny some guy with fucked-up knees from 17 years of being Airborne (but having never been to a war during his service), then to cut off war vets.
I dunno. I’d have to see more details and information before I jumped on the stage and started screaming with outrage. Yea, yea, we all hate Bush–I get that. But that’s irrelevant to this issue. Bush didn’t discharge this guy. And I doubt anyone in his administration did either.
Later I promise to go through much of that article and point out the things that stand out as bullshit or are just spun to serve their agenda.
For now I’d just like to point out that if “The Army” had some sinister plan to deny soldiers their benefits and trick them into not pursuing a PTSD medical board, then why–earlier this year–did the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff send out a MEDCOM OPORD that mandates a “Mild Traumatic Brain Injury / Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness and Response Program” be implemented across the entire Army???
This program “*directs all Soldiers (AD, USAR, and ARNG) to participate in training on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by 18 OCT 2007. This chain teaching program will inform leaders and Soldiers of the causes and physical and psychological effects of mTBI/PTSD and provide information on how to seek subsequent treatment of those conditions. In order to remain Army Strong, every leader and Soldier must be capable of identifying symptoms and ensuring that treatment is available to every Soldier who requires or requests it. Facilitators can access the download instructions and Facilitators Guide accessed HERE. *”
Emphasis mine. Also, the “HERE” at the end is a link the soldier can click on to receive the online trainining. Every soldier has access to it and it is actually required that every soldier go through the training to ensure they are informed.
That paragraph is quoted from the front page of every soldiers “Army Knowledge Online”, their Army Homepage.
Can’t quote from the MEDCOM because it’s FOUO.
If the SPC Town in that article really did get fucked over and it’s not just a case of him trying to get out of the Army quickly and having his plan backfire, then it is certainly not due to some elaborate financial conspiracy from the Bush Administration.
I always assumed that this was part of basic is to weed out those who could not hack it. I would consider this to be a classic example of the training people doing a good job.
Once they have put them out on the firing line, what happens from there on out is their responsibility. I can be a pitiless hardass about alot of things, but I don’t expect anyone to come out a combat MOS that has engaged in combat to not be changed by it. Especially if they were seriously injured in the process, it would be weird to not be a little psychologically scrambled by the experience.
So, what’s the buzz here? Is this something Bush has initiated, or just the latest in a long history of abuse? Also, is it happening mostly in basic training, or substantially after one or more tours in Iraq? Is it increasing under Bush moreso than under other presidents? Or what?