The Broken Soldier

I’m paying the comedians a bit more attention than their comments merit, but what the hell?  I have no other appointments, and I’ve already used up my medically prescribed fun for the week.  Repaying net trolls for their zany antics and efforts by way of metaphorically smashing their empty skulls was once one of my favorite pastimes.  It’s either this or masturbation, though I must say masturbation is rightly assessed a much higher Hedonic Calc score.

I get readers like “Lyle” and “Jay Starr” every now and again.  Those I’m reticent to label, as no single label would do them justice.  An agent must possess some recognizable characteristic, other than being a “retard,” to be classed in political discourse.  Some of these jokers claim to be military, current or former, and some claim to be concerned citizens.

The content of, for want of a better expression, ‘my critics” comments follow similar lines, almost as though they’re using the same formula, or sharing the same brain, to generate them.  “You’re fat.”  “You’re a piece of shit.”  “Why don’t you be a real man and post my comments?”  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me, but not for the reasons my critics might expect.  Their comments don’t hit a nerve.  Not the one they were aiming for anyway.

They focus on me, or the ‘me’ they’ve dreamed up, rather than on the reason for this site and its content: Problems accessing timely, appropriate, quality medical care for line of duty injured service members, and the consequences these problems create.  Demonstrating a problem is simple.  One need only watch TV or pick up any newspaper to learn about it.  (Or visit a Warrior Transition Battalion.)  The problems to which I often speak are the reason I was assigned to Warrior Transition.  The doctor basically running the program here at Knox was fed up with the way things were handled remotely.  So he brought me here.

Over a year to treat an LoD injury.  A once treatable injury is now permanently disabling.  That alone should be enough to justify any criticisms I might level at this system.  My circumstances are, unfortunately, not as uncommon as one might think.

There are 300 soldiers here in the WTB.  Many of them experienced problems like my own, especially those in reserve components.  What strikes me odd about folks like Lyle, aside from holding and offering such strong opinions but lacking the strength of conviction to use their real names and email addresses, is that if one can’t, as one should, support service members in times of crisis, I would hope one might be self-concerned (signpost of a minimally intelligent animal).  Lyle, assuming he’s an American citizen, will be paying for my medical care and, if my rater buddy’s intuitions are correct, which upon review of the rating schedule they likely are, close to $4,200/month tax free with increases for purchase parity for the rest of my natural life.  Costs that would not exist had the Army done what it was supposed to have done.

So next time you get the eager urge, Lyle or anyone like him, to play Eric Cartman Conservative hero, right or wrong defender of the Army and its ways, consider the above.  Hopefully the pain you feel in your pocketbook muscles will remind you of the pain my family, my fellow soldiers, I, and everyone else who’s been harmed by the imperfections of this system endure everyday.