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Skriven 2007-03-13 12:01:38 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
Ärende: The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
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http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq At Fort Benning, soldiers who
were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this
an isolated incident or a trend?

By Mark Benjamin

Mar. 11, 2007 | "This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has
been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would
be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about
taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit
to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."

As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's
3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious
injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are
medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor,
according to medical records.

On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions
from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the
division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for
handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for
commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical
problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and
dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other
soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded
soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to
Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.

The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a
steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed
by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a
week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that
because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is
still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to
Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about
the numbers," he said flatly.

That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans
for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured
troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet,
that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong.
It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles
may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are
that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and
tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that
is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."

Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the
troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division
surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga.,
and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers
described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam
or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed
focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's
profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last
tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.

Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make
sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division
surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that
all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that
commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if
they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a
telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third
of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring
them into accordance with regulations."

In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said
physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team
there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one
day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the
surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander.
Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health,
to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top
priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important
resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."

Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But
he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations
so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be
productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.

The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable
worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them
or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of
their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively
older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some
of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.

And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find
troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision
to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a
degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where
three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of
potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased
risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor
and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records
show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that
handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.

A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by
Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile
of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says
his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.

One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the
Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner
at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry
gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her
status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this
week.

The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears
retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as
an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he
explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear,
and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division
surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is
fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this
whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."

Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable
anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current
condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An
incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to
remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease
and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she
loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current
injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed
to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.

Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan
and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone
exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there
three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant
here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders
are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way"
Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of
these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He
railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This
is pathetic. It is bad."

His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of
her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they
"prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army.
Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and
chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking,
biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.

Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of
those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15.
The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she
limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."

Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his
first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from
narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation
while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's
apartment near Fort Benning.

Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant
danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military
vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9.
But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do
anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was
unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in
January, so he does not feel ready.

Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine
pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But
based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places
with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine
should it fail.

He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will
be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he
won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith,
who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be
one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to
go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are
going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to
give me a weapon right now.'"

The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers
as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an
e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes
public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a
similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other
soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.

Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether
the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where
else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told
me. "How high does it go?"

-- By Mark Benjamin

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