The Broken Soldier

I was finally feeling better.  I had been in withdrawal for the a couple days this last week.  Neither the Army or the Guard have bothered themselves to answer my many requests for prescription coverage for pain medication I’ve made in the past seven months I’ve had an approved LOD, and my wife and I couldn’t afford them until yesterday.  Plied with a good dosage of opioid, I was feeling more like myself (a sad commentary of what my life has become).  With the tremors, cold sweats, headaches, hallucinations, nausea and vomitting gone I felt well enough to resume attending to business.

I had a meeting with an attorney yesterday.  A member of the National Lawyers Guild.  As I described the events that led me to where and who I am now his eyes bugged and jaw was dropped.  As is standard, I even gave the Army and the Guard the most charitable rendering of their position: I’ve not been given medical care or other entitlements for this line of duty injury because I’ve not been cooperative in satisfying paperwork requirements.  The lawyer wasn’t buying it.  In his opinion (and mine), if the Army and Guard’s position were true, a soldier’s uncooperativeness and not filling out paperwork is not a good justification for crippling, drug-addicting, and financially-ruining said soldier.  He feels my case is compelling.  And once he gets copies of email conversations between the Guard and I, as well as medical records, letters from my doctor to the Guard and to Carl Levin’s office, and other support materials, I have a feeling he’ll find the case all the more compelling.

My friend Dave, my ride for the day, and I discussed the meeting on our drive back to my house.  Dave knows the situation well.  During the drive he made a really astute observation.  The Guard seems to have a suitable bureaucratic structure (Dave, as a mathematical logician is always talking about structure this, structure that) to accomplish its mission, but it would appear that every level of that structure is dysfunctional.  The only function it serves, it seems to Dave, is to do the bare minimum of what’s required by job title so as to cover one’s own ass.  I couldn’t have put it better myself.