Just got in from Fort Knox. You know, the place my wife and I were against traveling to in our bid to get disability without going through military medicine? The same place to which I was opposed to go in my efforts to resist the “treatment” the Army was offering me? (The previous are based on actual statements members of the Guard have made in effort to place blame on me.)

The trip, which was for an MRI - yes, you read that right, I was required to travel 860 miles round trip to get an MRI - went well. And by well I mean the aggravation of my injuries the travel caused only made me piss myself twice, put me in pain at around an 8 on the 10 point scale, and exacerbated my neurological symptoms to such an extent that during the MRI my legs and back couldn’t stop spasming - making the MRI result practically unusable.

The two contract MRI techs kept shaking their heads as my wife and I shared our experiences with them, and what we were in KY for - the MRI. The head tech was especially agitated. He said that in my condition a) I shouldn’t be traveling, but b) if it were absolutely necessary to travel that far to get an MRI (which there was no reason he could think of) the doctor ordering it should have known to prescribe me the most potent muscle relaxers available. Lest the MRI be useless because of the uncontrollable movements of my legs and lower back muscles, and the entire trip be for nothing.

Sarah and I were waiting in Radiology for copies of my MRI. We just don’t trust Army doctors to do the right thing without verifying their opinions against those of civilian radiologists. A sad group gathered waiting for records as the fresh off the boat radiology tech, who literally barely spoke English, bumbled around the clinic with a confused look on his face repeating every word his supervisor said.

One man is in the Minnesota ARNG. He broke his neck during his second tour in Iraq. Army doctors removed a square inch of his C1 vertebrae. They didn’t bother replacing it with anything. The only thing between his C1 and the outside world is some muscle and skin. His arm is paralyzed. He has 16 years with the Guard.  He’s unsure what they’re going to do with him.  He can’t work.  He feels fortunate, however, to have saved up some money from his two tours.

A young lady was there to pick up copies of her MRI to make sure the benign tumors that grow on her spinal cord hadn’t come back. The last time she had one, the doctors removed it and sent her back to work with a script for Ibuprofen.  She hopes she won’t have to go through that again.

A young man was there too to pick up MRI copies for his civilian doctor. He’s an E-4 paying for a civilian doctor out of pocket, because he doesn’t trust how his MEB/PEB is being handled. “Who is your doctor?” I asked. “Doctor Toon” he said. Small world. Toon has had him in MEB limbo for the last 9 months. He originally planned to make the Army a career. Though injured, he can’t wait to get out, regardless of whether he feels he gets the proper disability rating. He hates the Army now, and just wants to be done with them.

What seemed to separate them from me was my willingness to talk about it out loud regardless of who was around. When Army doctors would walk by they would quiet down. Bowing their heads almost. I asked, “Why do you guys quiet down when they walk by?” “They control what happens to us” was the gist of their responses.  “We don’t want to piss them off” was implied.

I wondered why they would be content complaining to me, but not to anyone with power to actually do anything about their complaints. Then a Colon Powell quote that I couldn’t quite remember verbatim at the time came to mind.  I just found.

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

Where are you, GEN Powell, when we need you?  What do we do, GEN, when it’s both?