The Broken Soldier

I meant to write about this yesterday. Figured one critical post was enough. Not for our tormentors’ sakes, as their actions merit constant criticism, but for my own peace of mind. POVs: Privately Owned Vehicles. We can’t use them to go to medical appointments on or off post.

Why? Who knows? Who cares? The justification doesn’t matter. A justification isn’t needed. Not when one has relative power.

We broke dicks, rather than ride in the comfort and convenience of our own cars or our friends’ cars, are permitted to ride the WTB shuttles - which are as comfortable as their name suggests. Think back to when you were a child bouncing around on the school bus, and you’re pretty close. That is, if as a child you had spine injuries, orthopedic issues, and other medical conditions making such a ride less fun as it is painful and dangerous. Have I mentioned the Army can’t do anything right?

It took two days for me to return to the depressed state I was in before. Two days of being around the bullshit that is the WTB. The insanity. The stupidity. The wrongful and willful misuse of relative power euphemistically called ‘looking out for your interests.’ It covers everything here as coal soot covers Braddock, PA. It oozes from every pore of every poor soul damned to this place for sins of Army un-usefulness. It’s put a stain on me I fear may never wash off. A contempt for baser motivations and behaviors of Humanity that will serve nothing but to feed itself and further complicate finding my place and my purpose in this world. “Transition.” That’s the buzz word here. I was ‘transitioned’ alright. From Purgatory to Hell.

The Army truly cannot do anything right except throw bullets at bad guys and teach others to do the same. Look around here folks. ACE cards aren’t going to help. Mocking people for their issues isn’t going to help. Pushing people beyond their limits is not going to help. Punishing those who cannot meet the sliding-scale standard is not going to help. Keeping people here, grown men and women, who are already injured in body and or mind for unnecessarily long stays is not going to help. People are killing themselves in part because of conditions YOU, those in power, create and pretermit.

Preface: This is not a ’shoot the messenger’ post. Got a call from my squad leader this morning alerting me to a new policy requiring me to either be at formation or at sick call.

My physical profile states that I’m to “sit or stand to tolerance for pain.” For the past two weeks I’m at my tolerance the moment the alarm sounds. Rather than violate my profile, I call in. On occasion, like yesterday, if my CoC needs to see me face to face they stop in. This new policy wrecks an approach my cadre and I have used with success.

I’m expected to a) appear, standing or sitting, at formation or b) go to sick call to sit or stand for an indefinite amount of time waiting to be seen. Both require worsening my pain symptoms. A) requires me to appear to hear information I could get from my squad leader delivered from my 1SG. B) requires me to see a doctor. Just see a doctor, as I refuse to take narcotic pain medications. Both require me to violate my physical profile. An action if I were to do could have me brought up on charges under UCMJ.

Does this make sense to you? Yeah, me neither. In this soldier’s humble opinion, the Army should devote more of its resources to teaching those in command/authority to think rationally, rather than to hiring additional PR folks to explain away negligence and poor performance, and train its enlisted to punish (see recent articles on punishing highly medicated troops) and do push ups.

Two gripes this evening. Or, depending on how one classes things, actions, etc., one gripe: Government inefficiency.

My wife got a letter Thursday speaking to a judgment against me. Apparently I owed a medical bill collection agency an unreferenced amount of money. The judgment, which I assume includes the original debt, collection and legal fees, come to the tune of $4k or so. This for treatment that a) Was for a line of duty injury, and b) for which I have, on numerous occasions submitted bills, requests for reimbursement, and necessary documents (a form to request use of the form to request use of another form, ad infinitum).

So. Here we are. I have a judgment on my credit record. An act, along with the still unresolved year’s worth of incap pay - to which I’m entitled by law and submitted the paperwork for several times over the past year and half - and consequent inability to keep up with my debts, have ruined me financially. Your government, in this case the Michigan Army National Guard and its ironically named Health Services Office, are on the job. By “on the job” I mean asleep (or mentally handicapped, which I imagine would be sort of like being asleep or at a minimum less conscious than you and me) at the wheel of important processes like military pay and payment/reimbursement of Line of Duty injury medical care.

FYI, an E-6 pulling active duty for the Guard makes about as much, after taxes are taken and allowances are added in, as a $70k+ salaried individual, plus full benefits (including retirement). The difference between the salaried individual and the active Guardsmen/women: The salaried person can get fired for incompetence and neglect and flat out not doing their job well, whereas the active Guardsmen/women gets service accommodations and promotions. Officers, some of whom had a hand in the fumbling of this matter, make much, much more. An O-6 (Colonel) makes roughly $6k to close to $10k/month base pay depending on years of “service” and approximately another $2k (non-taxed) in allowances. I know of at least one O-6 whose hands were all over this family-style goat fuck. Your tax dollars at work.

Next up, government waste. I admit to feeling ambivalent on this one. The action is in regard to the nerve stimulator implant. I’m scheduled on the 4th, this next Monday, for ANOTHER spinal stimulator implant consultation. I’ve already had a spinal stimulator implant consultation, but with another local clinic. Why the two clinics can’t communicate, assuming candidacy for said procedure is a matter of allopathic diagnostic connecting the dots (not a subjective matter) and why the Army hasn’t facilitated communication between the clinics is beyond me.

I have no idea how much these consultations cost. I assume around $200. But the cost is irrelevant. It’s a fine example of government waste. The only redeeming factor in this action is that it’s being done led by my squad leader’s efforts to hurry the procedure. Kudos, “Coop.” You are truly what an NCO should be, but too few of your colleagues are. You’re earning your keep, brother. If only others were as competent and careful in their jobs. There’d be no need for this site.

Medical Evaluation Board started. Didn’t know it was started. Last I heard it wasn’t going to be started. The appointment starting it was canceled in favor of a plan allowing me to finish out my career at Fort Living Room.

Those initiating the board assumed I knew the reason for the board-initiating appointment. Why? No one explained the reason for the appointment. (With a person I never met nor of whom had I ever heard.)

The appointment was, at best, confusing. The doc, who spoke in a thick Asian accent, was personable, seemingly concerned, but possibly mentally unhinged - or, because we’re speaking of a professional, barmy and eccentric. The doc spoke conspiratorially and of a need to ‘play up’ my symptoms. At one point I was encouraged to ‘use my imagination.’ I was having nothing of it, and did my best to keep the doc on task.

The doc was thorough, listing each and every symptom. Even those unrelated to this doctor’s specialty. My diagnosis was changed, against colleagues’ under-evaluations, to one that a) is more serious and has greater likelihood of permanence than its predecessors and b) more in line with the causes and effects of my situation. I appreciated the work this doc did, in spite of trying to lead me down Malingerer Blvd.

Now I wait. How long is anyone’s guess. I asked my case manager for a ballpark estimate. I got a shoulder shrug and what seemed, for the first time, like a forced grin.

I was then, as is typical in Army Culture, implicitly blamed for not taking initiative to speak in favor of the original plan (going home for this final procedure and remaining there until MEB/PEB completion). Yes, that the Hospital Commander nixes a plan based on false information is my problem to remedy. Indeed. I’m sure she’d welcome correction from a junior enlisted man. What purpose would be served in pleading my case to her or her deputy? Other than to inflate their egos and further deflate my sense that anything resembling Justice exists mingled amidst the dysfunction, incompetency, carelessness, and confusion of the system and those working within it.