The Broken Soldier

My wife and I are pleased with the traffic to our site.  We’re thankful to those taking time to read our experiences, inform themselves, and get involved to whatever degree their consciences compel and schedules permit.

It seems though there is still a small segment of our viewing population confused about our motives.  I’d like to devote a few moments to them in hopes of clarifying points of confusion.

My wife and I were happy to allow comments when this site first launched.  We felt, and still do feel, this topic is important and worthy of frank, open, and honest discussion.  It quickly became very clear to us, however, comment privileges were being abused.  Rather than engage in meaningful discussion of the issues this site is meant to address, participants used this site to smear my wife and I.  This was done without the benefit of real knowledge of the situation in which my wife and I find ourselves, and without the usual cogency, recognizable cues that those posting understand the subject being discussed, intellectual honesty, good will, etc., most consider necessary for a real discussion to take place.  The site was quickly becoming indistinguishable from any other site in which people offer their opinions on subjects they have no reason to believe they understand.  I decided to suspend posting privileges.

Rather than address particular comments or particular commentators I felt it’d be best to restate what this site is and what it is not.  This site is informational in nature, and serves as a medium in which my wife and I can share our experiences with obtaining medical care for a line of duty injury.  In the course of sharing our experiences we will offer analysis and opinion.  It should be understood our experience is limited, and our analysis could be wrong.  We are open to learning where we’ve gone wrong, and different approaches we could take to get the medical care I need.  However, as of the date of this post (20 November 2007), a full eight months after my Line of Duty investigation began, a full two months since its favorable conclusion, I have still not been authorized medical treatment my doctor deems necessary to treat my condition.

This site is not a place to bitch.  It is not a place to garner sympathies.  It is not a place to broadly defame the military or those serving in it.  Bitching, gaining sympathy, and defaming don’t fix my back or restore the sensations in my butt, legs, and feet.  These things don’t pay my bills or reduce the pain I experience.  And they are not the purpose of this site.  Neither is it a purpose of this site to convince the invincibly ignorant.  Some will deny a problem exists with a system or a procedure within that system until it darkens their doorstep.  My wife and I fell into that category of people before we experienced it for ourselves.  Now weak physically and emotionally, with only one income, barely keeping our heads above water, we’re not in a position to do much about it other than talk and write about it.  I hope those reading will take a serious look at this system, and measure it against the promises we have made to the men and women serving our country.  There is a disparity.  Our hope is this disparity can be addressed and corrected.