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Are We Supporting Our Wounded Troops? Dave Eberhart, Newsmax.com Part I of a series Many of America's wounded warriors are being shortchanged on disability benefits by a military establishment intent on keeping down costs, reveals a NewsMax investigation following the Walter Reed Army Hospital debacle. During Capitol Hill testimony in March, National Association for Uniformed Services legislative director Rick Jones pointed out that the number of soldiers approved for permanent disability retirement wasn't keeping realistic pace with the increasing number of injured returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. According to available Department of Defense figures, the Army had 5,500 more soldiers going through the physical evaluation board process in 2005 than in pre-war 2001 – but only 79 more soldiers were placed on permanent disability retirement in 2005 than in 2001. While permanent disability awards were shrinking, Jones emphasized, the number of veterans using the Veterans Administration (VA) for prosthetics, sensory aids and related service was ominously climbing – by more than 70 percent. He also expressed concern about the growing caseload of soldiers being placed on medical hold, saying, "We need quality decisions on the future of these wounded warriors, but we must never allow these valiant men and women to drift in limbo or fall through the cracks of bureaucratic neglect."
Story Continues Below Sadly, in this much-touted age of "We Support Our Troops," there are yet other troublesome statistics. A recent investigative report by the Navy Times disclosed that the Army and Marine Corps, which take the brunt of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, are paying their disabled veterans several hundred dollars a month less than the Air Force and Navy. What's more, according to Defense Department data, all services tend to grant officers disability ratings of 50 percent or higher at a significantly greater rate than enlisted members. A Ceiling on Disability Dollars? Army Lt. Col. Mike Parker, who originally sent the balloon up on the issue, says a disability retirement budget that has remained steady at $100 million a month from 2002 to 2005 – despite thousands more people going through the system in the Army alone – suggests to him that defense officials do, in fact, "have an idea of just how much they want to spend on disability retirement."
Critics like Parker fear that such figures indicate that the Army, in particular, purposely tries to hold down costs by giving low disability ratings to enlisted soldiers, who far outnumber officers going through the lengthy, convoluted disability system. Interviews with some troops show that a number believe there were intentional decisions to leave them with lower disability ratings than they feel they deserved. Other interviewees with multiple injuries complained of getting disability ratings based on only one of those injuries – often the one that merits the lowest rating. In some extreme cases, related anecdotally, soldiers exploring disability retirement within their own service were simply advised to take their claims to the VA. And the Army isn't defending itself and shrugging off all the grumblings as unfounded sour grapes. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker said in Capitol Hill testimony that a "perfect" case took at least six months to get through the Army's medical and physical evaluation board processes – even before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began – while the Navy completed processing most of its cases in just two months, using the same confounding disability charts and rules. In the wake of the Walter Reed scandal, which has provoked calls for a review of the entire military health system and particularly its disability evaluation processes, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has proposed reopening all past military disability cases for review. "At the end of the day," Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody acknowledged in a Congressional hearing, "it looks unfair, and quite frankly, we're being stingy as a nation." NEXT: Record numbers of wounded
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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