Text 3645, 227 rader
Skriven 2007-03-13 13:52:24 av Roy Witt (1:123/789.0)
   Kommentar till text 3639 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
Ärende: The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
=========================================================
Jesus! More whacko fiction from the left wing crazies...

"Janis Kracht -> All" <1:261/38> wrote in message
news:20249$POL_INC@JamNNTPd...
 JK> http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/

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

 JK> By Mark Benjamin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 JK> -- By Mark Benjamin

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