Some FYI on how the gov treats its injured Vets

[lyndonsmom]

Ok so I know how many of you just assume that our Vets are well taken care of and are treated with respect and dignity.  I can assure you that is not the case.

It takes soldiers 15 months do get out of the military sometimes with the disability they DESERVE.  Washington gives them low ball ratings and expects them to take it.  The case managers are given bonuses (in some cases) for the amount of guys that drop out that they were in charge of.  The "misplace" important documents that take you months to get in the first place, you are lied to on a daily basis, can't get the help you need like counseling.  They also make it impossible to go home to visit your family. 

Here is our story:

DH had a deployment 06-07, he did many things over there that no one ever should and there are so many men and women like this. He was hit with 12 IEDs and had 4 concussions, towards the end of the deployment something absolutely terrible had happened, another company in his brigade was attacked and soldiers were kidnapped.  After this incident things began to rapidly go down hill.  2 months before he was set to come home he lost it, picked up a gun and threatened his chain of command.  He was moved to a different location the next day. When he came home it was 2 weeks until DS was born. We already had a 14 month old DD at the time.  Our son was born and things were great until Christmas Leave.  We went home and the first day we got there he got drunk, I was fine with it.  Then the next night, and the next, it went on like this until the day we left a MONTH later.  We got home and I thought it was over, it was just getting started.  They had not yet done the evaluations for signs of PTSD or anything else.  He had come back about 2 weeks before the rest of them.  They did the evals in alphabetical order and we are W.  By the time they had gotten to him it was March.  At this point he had been drinking a 36 pack every weekend.  All he did was sleep drink and eat.  They finally evaluated him and he showed positive signs of PTSD. It was a month later when he finally received his first appt with a counselor.  At this point he had already had terrible and violent bouts of sleep walk, tried to strangle me, held a knife to my throat and ran out of the house  wearing boxers in 10 degree weather and was gone for hours.  After months of a struggle he finally stopped drinking and began a medication regimen of 10 pills 3 times a day.  He did the counseling and they found him no longer fit for his MOS (job)  They transferred him to a Warrior Transition Unit in Sept.  Once he got into WTU we thought things would finally go well.  We were told by his first case manager that it will only take 2 or 3 months and we will be home and not to worry (original date to leave the army Nov).  So we made the decision to stay so he can get the help he needed.  About a month that case manager left so we got a new one, she suggested we transfer to a post closer to home, we put the transfer in and before it went to be approved the was transferred.  He was then given a 3rd case manager and she insisted it was not necessary for a transfer because we would be home no later than X-mas.  Again we were lied to.  In Nov DH received a Traumatic Brain Injury test.  This test shows how much brain damage you have if any.  It was a 5 hour test.  By the end of it the Doc couldn't believe the results but of course we had to wait for the army to give them to us.  We received the results about a week before X-mas.  It was a 15 pg report.  The results at the end were that he had the comprehension of an 8 yo, reading level of a 4th grader and mentality and understanding of a 12 yo.  My DH is 22.  The results were a shock, although he shows many signs of this I guess I just got used to it, his running his words together and not comprehending what he says.  Using words for other words.  So here we are end of Feb, still not home, still no end in sight.  We still have 2 more steps to go before D.C. even gives DH a disability rating, if its correct then we can go home about 8 weeks later.

I just want everyone to understand the impact that this war is making on our soldiers, and how little help they are getting.  They are making soldiers so miserable and depressed that they just give up, and since (the Army at least) makes you sign an extension saying that if you drop the case you can not file for disability ever again, they say you sign this because if you don't you may not receive a paycheck once you hit your original final contract day.  I am not saying that my DH is special in the eyes of America but he is not the only one, there are HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of soldiers going through this and there isn't anything being done.  They are beginning to be forgotten and lost in the shuffle. 

Like I said I know all of our lives our stressful especially now with the economy, but I hope NONE of us want our soldiers getting lost.

[omerciful1]

Feb. 25, 2009 at 12:28 PM

Contact your senator and congressman- also, ask for him to get a referral to Walter Reed.....