The Broken Soldier

I had another conversation with Sheila Marolla last week. She told me the NCOIC of Health Services, SFC Patricia Weir, claims all requests for medical care from my doctor, my wife, and I have been authorized. Ms. Marolla sent along an attachment authorizing 12 visits to physical therapy dated December 10, 2007. This is odd. I’ve been in more or less weekly contact with my unit since September. This would mean I had at least two calls with my unit rep LT Van Hout between the time my physical therapy was approved and the unit left for the holiday break. During each call with LT Van Hout, she made certain to let me know she was hard at work and on the horn with Heath Services to get my medical care authorized. My conversation with Ms. Marolla was the first I had heard of approved physical therapy.

SFC Weir then went on to discuss my incapacitation pay. She claims the reason my request was disapproved was no medical records accept for the month of May, 2007. I submitted the request form (which includes a section filled out by my doctor) and medical records from May to September in September. I have since sent additional medical records to both my unit and Health Services from the months of October, November, and December.

SFC Weir also claims not to have received requests from anyone regarding my need for a neurosurgery consultation. My doctor, my wife, my unit, and I have all sent requests for referral to the neurosurgeon since May in the forms of actual referral slips, medical records, and hand and type-written requests along with conventional medical justifications for seeking this type of treatment. SFC Weir’s claims are obviously not true.

Weir then switches gears. Not approving incapacitation pay and neurosurgeon consultations wasn’t a matter of not having received the documents, it was a matter of ‘insufficient’ documentation. Language is fun isn’t it? Of course, in this context, insufficient can mean anything, to include referring to a level of documentation no person could ever reasonably hope to satisfy. Eric, my buddy whose story is also posted here, went through something very similar. This seems to be all too common with reserve components of the Army seeking the benefits to which they’re entitled. In attempt to remedy, I’m sending along every related document sent by every person involved during the past 9 months to Sheila Marolla later today. I’ll also be sending along email conversations between my unit and I speaking to the need (per conversations with my doctor) to see a neurosurgeon as early as the second week of May.

It’s tempting to blame my unit for this. Maybe my OIC isn’t doing what she claims to have been doing. Though I find this hard to accept. More plausible is that SFC Weir and the people in Health Services and at State JFHQ are lying in attempt to cover their asses. But denying having received a mountain of documentation, then changing stories to not having received sufficient documentation is bound to raise eyebrows during a formal inquiry conducted by a US Senator’s staff. We have receipts from our trips to Kinkos. We have email from my unit confirming they received faxed materials. My doctor and his staff have records of the materials they have sent to Health Services directly from their office. What makes a person deny things that are obvious to everyone? Well friends, these idiots are about get housed by the legal equivalent of Wittgenstein’s Poker.

If the formal inquiry doesn’t fix the problem, my attorney is talking about bringing a ‘mandamus’ suit against the Guard in Federal Court. For those of you not hip to the jargon, this is a legal action in which a judge orders the National Guard to do what it is legally obligated to do.