The Broken Soldier

Feeling a bit distressed.  Distress worsened by the strange, shameful enjoyment derived from watching “Heart Beeps,” and what that enjoyment reveals about my personality.

Got a call from Knox yesterday.  Apparently I’m soon for discharge. That’s not distressing.  It’s something of a relief.  That I’m required to be at Knox, well, Ireland Community Hospital, for an indefinite time is.  While I trust Doc Harbinger relative to his comrades, I have sufficient reason, from experience, to be distrustful of the organization of which he’s a part.  Two weeks to three months is the range.  Lots of time to confuse things.  Hell, Dr. Toon confused things, which, to no small degree was part of the reason I went without appropriate treatment for a year and a half, in less than two hours.

The Doc and I are in agreement about one thing: It’s best for both the Army and for me that I be medically discharged.  As Deputy Commander, I assume he has some discretion in making this decision.  At least, I’m hopeful he has some discretion.  There is no way in hell I’d quietly accept the Army or the MIARNG breaching my contract, and there’s no way in hell I’d be physically able to satisfy the terms of my contract.

I’m still ambivalent with regard to the Army.  On the one hand, I’m relieved that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.  On the other hand, I’m saddened that I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do.  That is, become an officer viewing the men and women serving under him as people rather than mission essential supplies.  Someone willing to take heat for his folks.  Someone willing to advocate for them.  Something, from those I’ve talked to coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, is sorely needed.

As more time passes, the realities of my injuries and secondary illnesses/syndromes become profoundly more clear.  By that I mean I’m not talkin’ the probability of permanent disability, but of actual permanent disability.  Recognition and acceptance has been a difficult process, but I’m finally coming to terms with it.  Indulge me in a bit of third person, the ‘old’ Jimison is gone and won’t be coming back.  The beat goes on.

I’ve done a lot of complaining to a lot of people over the past year and a half.  Making frank, angry, confrontational dialog something of a science.  I’ve been fortunate to have made many allies and friends - contradicting the ‘more flies with honey’ maxim.  JR is one of those.

Former Army, Airborne, messed up back, chronic pain, depression, his CV looks a lot like my own.  But our differences are what’s important for the purpose of this post.  He worked for quite a long time, until he was physically no longer able to work, with the VA assisting vets obtain equitable compensation and access to entitlements under the law.  Though he no longer works with the VA, he’s fully disabled from service-connected injuries, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the system, many contacts, and considerable respect of his former co-workers.    He’s helping me navigate this system.

Based on his experience, JR’s confident I’m eligible for 100% disability entitlement or Individual Unemployability, which amounts to the same rate of compensation.  (And before those of my readership subscribing to an Eric Cartman strain of economic Conservatism get their vaginae sandy, there’s an easily recognizable difference between an earned legal entitlement and an entitlement mentality.)  That is, as JR says, “… if things are done right.”  Getting things right seems to be a major issue in my limited experience with the federal government.

A semi-worrying matter came to my attention last night during an argument with a friend.  A matter of false perceptions.  Understandable errors, but errors nonetheless.  The title suggests the errors.

Anger

One need only read this site casually to conclude I’m angry about what’s happened and what hasn’t happened during my tenure with the MIARNG.  But there’s considerable difference between justifiable anger and a pathological anger.  Let’s recap.

Sent to training against my will, Army Regulations, and the terms of my contract.  My assent gained by holding my career hostage.  While at training, instructor orders 250 trainees and all of their gear (80 pounds or so of it) out a banquet hall with two exits in ten seconds, else face some sort of punishment.  Hit from the front.  Hit from behind.  Twist.  Snap.  Crackle.  Pop.  Pain in my lower back running down my right leg and foot.  Went to the doc.  Doc punched my symptoms into WebMD while berating and mocking me for concern that I was losing sensation and movement in my right leg.  Doc goes with the least severe diagnosis, “pulled muscles,” and sends me back to field training with a broken back.  I get home.  Alert my home unit that I was injured.  I’m told not to seek treatment.  The reason: More paperwork for the unit NCO.  I’m told the process of approving medical care will take six weeks.  The process actually took six months.  No explanation was given.  My wife and I sought care, paying for it ourselves out of pocket on one salary.  Difficulty getting medical care approved.  Length of time between rendering appropriate care and injury was sufficient to permanently damage the nerves responsible for sensory and motor functions in my right leg and foot.  An outcome that could have been avoided had anyone in a position of power done what they were supposed to have done.  Am I angry about that?  You betcha!  And if anyone of you reading this were in a similar situation you’d be angry too.

But that this site is devoted, for the most part, to discussing my experiences with Army bureaucracy, and the harm its inefficiencies have caused my family and I, things I’m definitely angry about, it doesn’t mean I’m angry all the time.  This anger doesn’t manifest in a way that interferes with my other activities.  With personal and social relationships.  I don’t wake up every morning cursing the world, eager to kick the dogs, smack my wife, and take a shit on the neighbor’s lawn for borrowing my hand-truck without permission.  In fact, most people who know me, are around me often, are surprised at how good-humored and balanced I’ve been throughout this ordeal.

Authority

My problems with authority aren’t of a rebellious sort.  My problems are with misuse.  For example, a company grade officer, let’s call him LT Lemetrius Duckett, fails to meet his obligations to mentor and prepare me for OCS.  In the course of this failure LT asks that I lie for him to his superiors regarding his involvement in helping me prepare.  He then realizes a class scheduling error, a class seat for Warrior Transition Course, works in his favor.  The course, or so he believes, as he didn’t bother actually investigating the matter himself, will resolve certain issues needing to be addressed before I could leave for OCS training.  I resisted citing Army Regulation and the terms of my contract.  When that failed to persuade him, he changed tactics.  At first stating, “Don’t you want to feel as though you’ve earned that bar?”  When that failed to persuade me, he made the following statement in email.  “You are correct.  You are NOT REQUIRED to attend WTC.  You need unit approval to do that.”  In context the meaning was clear.  Go to WTC, or I will not grant you permission to attend OCS, satisfying the terms of your enlistment contract.

Another example.  Richard Dawkin’s “God Delusion.”  In it, he speaks to God’s existence as a testable hypothesis, and then, quite awkwardly, claims God’s non-existence is supportable - concomitant some strange call to God’s existence being non-zero probable.  Problem: Dick’s claims are not scientific in spite of being couched in scientific lingo.  No data, no test, and more importantly, no supportable conclusion.  Eliminative, enumerative, and statistical inferrence have their limitations.  Namely, they require observation.  Great for describing and generating explanatory stories regarding the physical universe.  Not so good at tackling the non-physical or non-physically measureables.

In each example authority is misused.  In each example it is right to question the use, regardless of one’s status or authority relative to the misuser.  I hope this clears things up.

eMom has a new campaign to help the troops.  She wrote today asking that I help her get the word out about Operation Soldier Care.  eMom and Nancy Sutherland (Mary Kay Sales Director) are raising money for sun and skin care packages for our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Top contributors receive gifts - t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.  Please stop by eMailOurMilitary.com today.  Give as much as you can.  Thank you.

I’m having a bit of trouble.  Not the usual trouble I write about here.  Most of that trouble’s permanent, and while I’ve written a lot about it, I’m not big on repeating myself a thousand fucking times.  No, this trouble is of a different, but almost equally vexing kind.  A kind of trouble that’s caused me a lot of grief, and a trouble for which I have no corrective course to suggest.  I’m speaking of trying to ’shit higher than one’s ass.’

The phrase, sometimes attributed to Wittgenstein, though I don’t recall reading this statement in any of his work, I interpret as a ‘cautionary’ of sorts.  A handy, easy device to keep us honest and mindful of our strengths and limitations.  A device that, after 11 months of blogging and more closely observing the claim habits of others, many, if not most, don’t have in their intellectual tool belts.  Worse than not having it or something similar, most of those fail to recognize they need it.  This failure serves little purpose.  Other than to confuse whatever issue’s discussed, and possibly to ensure those discussing whatever issue go wrong with an undeserved and unsupportable self-congratulatory confidence.

This observation has me puzzled.  Why put so much time and effort into an activity one clearly doesn’t care enough about to get right?  I have some opinions.  Ego-investment.  A belief in ‘the right to one’s opinion’ founded on a lack of recognition of authority, expertise, difference, and understanding of even the most rudimentary structures of civilization, technology, knowledge-justification, and other foibles of our growing, greased-wheel eager impulse-slaking mass-man culture.  Toss in a bit of PoMo babble for flavor, which, by the time it trickles from the Tower to the streets has lost any meaning and application it may have had, and even the most simple and obvious truths are questionable (and questioned).

We do this at our own peril folks.  History is full of examples of this type of decadence and degeneration.  Many have followed the pattern we have (purposely or otherwise) adopted.  Most reside in the dustbins of history and unrecoverable retrogression.  Each time you assault and manipulate truth for some immediate gain, real or perceived, you plant another seed of our eventual destruction.

I’d like to think that through courageous diligence I accomplished something.  But I know that’s not true.  I played a very limited hand.  Constant, highly vocal criticism, and the ‘my buddies can do X’ card.  Both slapped down with good measures of temerity and what most believe to be righteous indignation.

Really I did very little.  Though very little is all one can do in this system.  That is, until measures, probably legislative, are taken to correct problems in the system.  As I think back on the past year and half, it really drops ten pounds of choler in my 5 pound choler bag that most of the problems I experienced, and the horrible consequences these problems created, could have been corrected in about 15 minutes had proper channels and procedures been used.

But there’s good news to report.  Finally I’m on Active Duty Medical Extension orders.  Approved and backdated to June.  Meaning a good bit of money, an easier time approving the medical care I need, and a retention decision within 90 days - possibly 90 days from June 5th.  It seems likely, as well, that incapacitation pay backdated to Sept 07 will be approved.

Why this change of approach?  Not sure.  I seriously doubt it reflects a change of heart.  My sense is, and of course I could be totally off the rez, the Army wants to get square with the house before they show me the door.  Or perhaps, more in line with their M.O., they’d try to retain me while also removing the largest stores of bitching-ammo.  I guess I’ll find out soon enough.  (And so will all of you.)

As many of you know, I’m soon to start theological training.  The end goal is ordination as a Benedictine Old Catholic priest.  An end the Abbot has asked be expedited.  My studies should be very interesting.  Given my background in languages - specifically Semitic languages, German, and Ancient Greek, the professor and I will focus on Scripture as it is thought to be originally written, Christology, and Liturgy.

I admit to having doubts.  Not a crisis of faith, but concern for finding my place in the presbyterate.  Those who know me personally fully understand.  Those who don’t, suffice it to say a Byronic hero, whether chasubled or flack vested, seldom makes a good subordinate.  (Yeah, I’m pretty sure I just made up a word and awkwardly used another.  Cut me some slack.  I’m just a dumb Army guy taught to deal death, defile cultures, indiscriminately kill children, women, and old people, and rape baby seals.  We warriors leave concern for orthography to the French (I mean ‘Freedom Landers?’) and other pussies.)

I wouldn’t say I’m disobedient.  More that I don’t bow well (bad back) and I never developed a taste for shoe polish.  I consider it a much greater show of respect to tell the truth and share my unfiltered thoughts than to flatter and agree.

For those who get the reference, sorry.  Consider the title a useful construct.

Simians.  Not much patience for them.  Those in ACU patterns especially so.  Haven’t heard from them, any of them, in close to two months.  Somehow the ‘we’re all rooting for ya’ email sign-off rings hollow in light of this lack of communication and inferred lack of concern.

Cyborgs.  I’ll soon be one.  The neurosurgeon’s PA wrote a script for a fancy orthotic device.  The upper portion girds my ankle and the upper part of my right foot.  The middle and lower, as described to me, is spring-loaded.  The purpose: Keeping the top of my right foot from dragging the ground when I walk.

Women.  Two of note.  First the PA.  Pisses me off that I know more about my injuries, syndromes, and how to treat each than she does.  She prescribed PT 2-3 times a week for 4 weeks.  If that doesn’t work, more diagnostic testing, and additional surgeries are what awaits me.  Again, I voiced concern re: Spinal fusion.  With the discs above deteriorating - and deteriorated to the exact degree L5-S1 was 18 months ago, the additional stress of fusion may not be the best option.  She shook her head, something of a vacant expression on her usually chirpy and attentive countenance, spit what I just said back at me, saying fusion was the likely next step.  Whatever.

The second women of note is my wife.  She’s concerned.  The usual stuff plus some newer stuff.  Specifically ‘mood swings.’  I don’t recognize them.  She does.  I’ll have to bring them up to the doc next time.  To finish the thought, I feel sorry for her.  Living me with pre-injury was no picnic.  Post-injury has to be a nightmare.

Not much new to report.  I figured this post’ll be an update of the last week.

I’m still okay.  Better than 8 months ago, but still not good/well.  I still have pain, trouble walking, and the neurological symptoms I had before, the intensity of each proportionate to level of activity.  The Restoril isn’t working quite as well as it once did.  Hopefully a higher dose will.

Wife and I had our second anniversary.  We each got 3Gs.  I finally started the novel.  It’s coming along very well.  I’m actually a bit surprised at how easy it is to write fiction.

After a lot of tinkering I submitted my application for priesthood to the Abbot and Prior of my Order.

Still haven’t heard anything from the Army re: My status/disposition of my MEB/PEB.  Why should I know, right?  It’s only my wife and my future plans in suspense.  It’s not just a part time job, it’s a huge fucking annoyance, I mean adventure.

My brother got back from AT.  These retards got the smack down from 1st Army for putting their people in FOBs.  Idiots.  I’ve never understood why some, and this seems common in the Army and Marine Corps, make silently enduring and in some instances requesting poor treatment into some sort of virtue.  I think it just makes one a pussy or a masochist.  The justification Cody got from his ’superiors’ had something to do with ‘keeping it real.’  Too bad keeping it real in Iraq and Afghanistan got nothing to do with tent cities, as everyone’s in barracks or trailers.  And by the way, living in a tent for two weeks for no good reason doesn’t make anyone tougher.

I have another neurosurgeon appt next week.  I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling he’s going to recommend fusion, possibly multiple-level.  I’ll be sure to update next week.