The Broken Soldier

I’ve been in the Fort Knox, KY Warrior Transition Battalion for four days.  Being away from family, friends, and familiar environs has been difficult.  I’m adjusting.  My battle buddies are helping me adjust.  I’d like to think in some small way I’m helping them too.

The way soldiers care for one and other is truly remarkable.  That this care doesn’t require years of friendship or blood ties to develop is possibly the most remarkable part.  Hearing “We’re here for you brother” bandied about the barracks, the PX, and the hospital isn’t unusual.  And what’s more, the men and women making the statements mean it.

Hardness and obscenity and laughter and good humored ribbing often hide the care and concern we feel (and act upon) for one and other.  Perhaps our way of being sensitive without seeming like pussies.  But the men and women here with me, regardless of where they’re from, their rank, their race, their religion, their education, their background, they’re my family - sans the dysfunction.  For a time I lost sight of what distinguished soldiers from non-soldiers.  As I write this, with a profound want for words describing all that’s good in human nature as revealed in the men and women serving with me, those distinguishing features couldn’t be more clear.

It’s the Saturday.  I leave for Fort Knox on Monday to make a Tuesday morning appointment.  I don’t have readable, usable orders.  I don’t have an itinerary.  I don’t know what to bring (copious civilian medical records, for example).  I don’t have instructions regarding where to go.  Where I’m to stay overnight.  To whom I report.  When I’m to report.  But the orders did have the wrong home address.  That much I could make out.

I was paid yesterday (I assume), but it was less than expected.  Any amount is welcomed and helpful at this point, but when actions are based on information, and that information is wrong, problems are created.  I’m referring to having been told my orders, and therefore my pay, would be backdated to the day the State submitted their request that I be placed on ADME.  That’s June 5th.  Typically I receive about $2800/month after taxes.  I received a little over $4k.  $4k is not 3.5 months of pay at $2800/month.

I looked at my Leave and Earnings Statement.  1.5 months of pay, and an equal amount of allowances.  Though the allowances were rated BAH Type II rather than regular BAH.  BAH Type II, I learned, is given to soldiers on orders less than 30 days in transition (as in a PCS or returning from remote deployment) to a location with no previously established BAH rate.  These conditions do not apply to me.  That they paid me 1.5 months (45 days) of BAH Type II suggests this.  As well, my area has an established BAH rate.

The difference is approximately $900/month.  $900/month multiplied by 3.5 is hardly an insignificant amount of money.  When I asked for help addressing these matters, I was reunited with an old friend: “The Learning Curve.”  I’m a bit too bothered about this to construct some anthropomorphic representation of the Army Learning Curve.  Though if I were so inclined, he or she would be a negatively accelerating blunt object, with limp wrists, a sloped forehead, some form of dwarfism, full frontal lobotomized, multiple trisomic, myopic or possibly blind, pathologically lazy and stupid, and stuck in a bear trap.  Think Ringo Starr in “Caveman” wearing ACUs rather than dead animal skins and you’re pretty close.  Our little friend has been used many times to justify dereliction of duties by various members of the Army for as long as I’ve been a part of the organization.

Something is wrong here.  The wrongness is deep.  “I’m new here” is something one expects of a teenager working the register at Taco Bell.  Not of a officers, commissioned and non, responsible for addressing important issues.  Issues that affect the lives of those appointed under them.  This is the same excuse others within this organization have used to justify having crippled me with their neglect and incompetence.

Got an email today informing me I’m to report next Monday.  That’s good because it’d be impossible for me to get there earlier.  The email included the traffic between the sender and others involved in working my orders.  In reviewing the traffic, I learned many are involved.  Possibly too many given the nature of the work being done.

In a cursory viewing, there were several people working this matter, at least six, in some way or form.  Those working the matter knew as early as the 9th of September that my orders required me to be at Fort Knox by the 17th.  Orders were in the system as early as the 5th of September.  It took until late afternoon on the 16th for the message to find its way to me.  Why?

Nature of bureaucracy?  I don’t believe so.  Inefficiency isn’t implied in bureaucracy, though many joke and possibly truly believe it is.  More hands typically lightens the load, that is, when those hands work in unison.  But it seems to me lightening the load isn’t the purpose of this bureaucracy.  What its purpose is, I can only guess.  But because this matter wasn’t handled efficiently, I draw pay and entitlements for an extra week while not being treated.  Creating further cost to the government (to all tax payers) in the immediate future and, because outcomes worsen as time goes on, probably in the distant future too.

Addendum: Looking over the forwarded email again, there were actually 14 people working on getting my orders to me.  It took 14 people to get my orders from Fort Knox to me.  14.  And when the orders arrived, they were of such poor quality that they couldn’t be read.  Making them practically useless to me.

Three weeks ago my wife and I were discussing Warrior Transition Unit.  Many of the topics have already been covered here.  Our expectations aren’t high.  They’re quite dismal in fact.

Trust is a major issue.  It has been for some time.  It’s induction.  Most in this class have behaved in a dishonest or incompetent way.  It’s reasonable then to infer future dealings with members of this class will be handled dishonestly and/or incompetently.

Sarah was joking around, half seriously, about the possibility of getting orders late, and therefore I would be unable to report as expected.  Not showing up would be used to get me in some sort of trouble.  Possibly pushing me against the wall, perhaps shutting my mouth.  Low and behold I get a call late afternoon from an 1171st NCO.

“… calling to confirm you know you’re supposed to be at Fort Knox tomorrow.”  I got the message after 4 p.m.  I called the messenger back.  She wasn’t in.  I called the people at Knox.  They weren’t in.  I left a message with the doc I’ve been working with that I would not be able to make it Knox tomorrow as was expected of me.

Time will tell whether Phythia to my omphalos stone’s (that’s a little joke) predictions unfold as foreseen.

Holy sheep shit!  I just finished watching Good Will Hunting’s Palin declamation.  Wow!  Yes Will, it is important, given actuary tables, to know whether the VP candidate believes dinosaurs roamed 4k years ago.  I mean, really, how can we sleep at night knowing a Creationist has the codes?

I imagine this was Will’s attempt to paint Palin a dumber color.  Zinn forbid one’s beliefs be informed by their religious commitments.  The Socratic irony is thick.  So thick Will’s false conceptions shouldn’t really require adroit questioning to reveal them so.

I don’t know Sarah Palin.  I don’t know much about her.  For the past two years, my concernments and limited attentions have, out of necessity, been focused inward as opposed to on which asshole will sit in the White House at year’s end.  As such, I don’t know if she’d make a good VP.  I don’t even know what it means to be a good VP.  But I do know one’s beliefs regarding dinosaurs got nothin’ to do with the decision to approve or disapprove a nuclear strike against an enemy.  In addition, I have to believe, though I haven’t followed the election, there are substantive issues to discuss.  So long as we focus on the trivial pursuits of semi-gifted actors (which, by the way, doesn’t qualify these fucking gadflies to speak to political matters or any other in an expert’s tone), we won’t be focused on substantive issues.

Seriously, what the hell?  Is this really that hard to grasp?  I just finished up discussing billeting for my wife during my stay, which is indefinite by the way, with some folks at Knox.  People in the know about Warrior Transition Unit.  I appreciate that they’re trying to help, but Jesus Christ, can someone please give these folks a mandatory crash in critical thinking?

This is the description of the program I’m soon to enter, along with what I’m sure is hasty congratulation:

“Changes in the Army’s health care delivery system have become visible, even to the untrained eye. What’s more, the Warriors in Transition (WT) and Families under the care of that system have begun to feel the results of the changes.

Soldiers and their families are assigned a treatment team. This physician, nurse case managers, and military squad leader triad works together to help each Soldier and Family in the healing process. This personalized attention and treatment plan leads to better care and increased morale.

The Army has adopted many procedures from private sector health care and from lessons learned in military treatment facilities, to open communication channels between WTs and medical decision-makers:

• Encourage WTs and Families to express exactly what their needs are.
• Treat each person according to those individual needs.
• Ensure Triad members communicate with one another on the treatment.
• An ombudsman listens to WTs, Families, and the Triad, when things don’t work the way they ought to, then recommends improvements in the process.”

Notice, if you will, that family is to play an essential role in this new approach.  Yet, from conversation with two people associated with this program, it is uncertain, and I would say unlikely the Army will pay for my wife (at this juncture, my only real family besides my little brother) to be present during my stay.  How then is my wife, my only available family - little bro’s working and in college - to play a part in this new approach?

This is modus ponens folks.  If Warrior Transition Unit, then Family.  Warrior Transition Unit.  :. Family.  Is this tough to understand?  Does pointing this out make me a smart ass?  I sense it does to the boys in green.  But the playful method of this post belies serious matters.  Central among them are matters of trust, as in how am I to trust these people given past experience and given that they can’t live up to the standards and definitions they’ve created?  How am I to heal without the calming influence of family presence, especially when I don’t trust anyone else involved?

You know, Army personnel lacking recognition of who I am is really pissing me off.  By that I mean a failure to recognize that I’m not some dumb kid, green and ripe to be taken advantage of, manipulated, lied to, etc.  I’m a 33 year old man with multiple college degrees.  In fact, with 350 semester hours total grad and undergrad credit, there aren’t a lot of doctorate holders with as much education as I have.  I also have quite a lot of experience in the working world (including active duty military), and, in spite of deficits brought on by chronic pain, insomnia, and depression - each feeding the other - a great memory (close if not actually photographic) and intelligence slightly higher than that of a fucking carrot (Z score=5, to be precise).  I’ve kept my mouth shut and stilled typing fingers mostly because it isn’t worth getting into.  I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.  But folk in the Army seem to labor under the delusion that because I’m junior enlisted (as I was not given an opportunity to attend OCS) they are free flout the rules, to lie to me, to gain my assent to something by one set of conditions, changing those conditions after my assent is gained.

I’m a tolerant man.  I have a very long fuse.  It takes a lot to get me up to ‘get get get down’ as Flavor Flav, my cognitive father, is fond of saying.  But once I’m up….

The folks at the State, the unit, and at Knox got me up yesterday.  Each painted Active Duty Medical Extension as one thing in order to gain my assent, and now that it’s time to start ADME it isn’t what they said it would be.  Whether they deliberately misled me, failed to communicate what to expect to me, or were simply mistaken, my assent was gained under false pretenses.  But this happens quite a lot from my experience.  And when it happens and I’m bold enough to bring it up, I’m the asshole.  Whatever.  I trust this organization less and less each time I deal with them.  I’m truly looking forward to being a civilian again.

I’m set up for treatment at Knox through the Warrior Transition Unit program.  I’m terrified.  It’s possible these people are going to cut on me.  It’s definite that they’ll be making decisions about my retention, my initial disability rating, etc.  How can I trust them to do any of those correctly when I can’t trust them to be straight with me?  Answer: I can’t.

Ressentiment.  No, it’s not a misspelling.  It’s a fancy college-boy word meaning, as I’m using it, “chronic resentment and hostility towards a group without a means of acting on it.”  Why not?  I used to be a fancy college-boy, I’ve felt a lot of resentment towards our government for its failings, along with a feeling of inability to affect a more positive outcome.

Nietzsche spoke of this experience, treated in his one trick pony ’slave morality’ fashion, as one familiar with his work might expect.  Others have treated the subject in various ways to contrast Nietzsche’s diachronic approach, but all seem to view this feeling and its expression as ‘corrosive’ and or a misapplication of ethics/values.  But this post isn’t meant to be a criticism of their positions or an exposition of my own.  Got no energy for that.  And frankly, who gives a fuck what philosophers think?  (Aside from philosophers themselves?)

I’m pissed off.  I have good reason to be.  And those responsible for correcting the cause of this feeling are shirking their responsibilities - moral and legal.  I’ve been asking for psychiatric treatment for over a year.  Beginning around the time I started flirting with the idea of offing myself.

My unit was useless.  The State put the responsibility on Fort Knox.  Fort Knox doesn’t appear opposed to getting me counseling of some sort and a med adjustment, but aren’t approaching the matter with the sort of urgency it demands.  As I am a veteran, I’ve sought help through the VA.  The local extension directed me to the local VA medical center.  The local VA medical center directed me to the nearest ER.  When I informed them I had no medical insurance, and could not afford a trip to the ER (which likely wouldn’t be reimbursed although secondary to a line of duty injury), I was told going to the local ER was part of VA protocol.  I was told I’d do intake at the local ER, and then be transferred to the VA med center.  Why the extra step?

My buddy JR is trying to help.  He’s calling everyone he knows.  Giving me numbers in the area of people whose jobs it is to get me the help I need.  When I call, I’m either directed somewhere else, or I get voicemail and no return call.  Does the outrage and resent I feel towards the government seem slavish, a misapplication of ethics, or anything but wholly rational and justifiable to any of you?  It sure as shit doesn’t seem that way to me.