How the Pentagon Is Cheating Wounded Vets -- Soldiers Aren't Disposable

The military's sad legacy of denying the care troops need after combat.

The mortar shell that wrecked Chuck Luther's life exploded at the base of the guard tower. Luther heard the brief whistling, followed by a flash of fire, a plume of smoke and a deafening bang that shook the tower and threw him to the floor. The Army sergeant's head slammed against the concrete, and he lay there in the Iraqi heat, his nose leaking clear fluid.

"I remember laying there in a daze, looking around, trying to figure out where I was at," he says. "I was nauseous. My teeth hurt. My shoulder hurt. And my right ear was killing me." Luther picked himself up and finished his shift, then took some ibuprofen to dull the pain. The sergeant was seven months into his deployment at Camp Taji, in the volatile Sunni Triangle, twenty miles north of Baghdad. He was determined, he says, to complete his mission. But the short, muscular frame that had guided him to twenty-two honors -- including three Army Achievement Medals and a Combat Action Badge -- was basically broken. The shoulder pain persisted, and the hearing in his right ear, which evaporated on impact, never returned, replaced by the maddening hum of tinnitus.

Then came the headaches. "They'd start with a speckling in the corner of my vision, then grow worse and worse until finally the right eye would just shut down and go blank," he says. "The left one felt like someone was stabbing me over and over in the eye."

Doctors at Camp Taji's aid station told Luther he was faking his symptoms. When he insisted he wasn't, they presented a new diagnosis for his blindness: personality disorder.

"To be told that I was lying, that was a real smack in the face," says Luther. "Then when they said 'personality disorder,' I was really confused. I didn't understand how a problem with my personality could cause deafness or blindness or shoulder pain."

For three years The Nation has been reporting on military doctors' fraudulent use of personality disorder to discharge wounded soldiers [see Kors, "How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits," April 9, 2007]. PD is a severe mental illness that emerges during childhood and is listed in military regulations as a pre-existing condition, not a result of combat. Thus those who are discharged with PD are denied a lifetime of disability benefits, which the military is required to provide to soldiers wounded during service. Soldiers discharged with PD are also denied long-term medical care. And they have to give back a slice of their re-enlistment bonus. That amount is often larger than the soldier's final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand dollars.

According to figures from the Pentagon and a Harvard University study, the military is saving billions by discharging soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan with personality disorder.

In July 2007 the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs called a hearing to investigate PD discharges. Barack Obama, then a senator, put forward a bill to halt all PD discharges. And before leaving office, President Bush signed a law requiring the defense secretary to conduct his own investigation of the PD discharge system. But Obama's bill did not pass, and the Defense Department concluded that no soldiers had been wrongly discharged. The PD dismissals have continued. Since 2001 more than 22,600 soldiers have been discharged with personality disorder. That number includes soldiers who have served two and three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Personality disorder huh?

Welcome to America...

I did a collage on how military vets get treated.
From lawyers finding loopholes to take away the pensions they earned in battle to people just being apathetic about the whole thing.
Our people are VERY confused.
This comes as no surprize to me at all.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3e260d83a19e.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Crossfate


This is so very sad.

Reading a story like this, should make anybody who is considering volunteering for service, reconsider.

These people lay their lives on the line, and when their whole life is turned upside down, their life no longer matters.

It makes me wonder if the US appreciates a dead soldier over and above a live one, who makes it home safely, because the lifelong affects do go on forever, in the life of people who serve.

My husband and I met a neighbor recently, who served in Viet Nam. While this gentleman was getting older, it did not take him more than a few minutes to hear him talk about his experiences in a war that was fruitless. All these years later he still is not over it.

eidt spelling



[edit on 6-5-2010 by Blanca Rose]

reply to post by DrumsRfun


The fact that I've seen instances similar to that picture you posted just enrages me. Lets convince people what a wonderful country we are, have them fight and die for us, then turn them down after all they've done...

reply to post by Blanca Rose


It's atrocious because I know a Vietnam vet going through a similar type of situation and the thing is after he blindly and yet proudly fought for his country it took getting abused by his country and turned down to open his eyes to the reality of America. He runs a local military surplus pawn shop and discussions with him are quite enlightening. He brings a whole new meaning to the word "Patriot".

A husband of one of my friends is going through all kinds of psychological issues and health issues due to chemical experiments and after effects and he is in the same boat. To many times this kind of sh*t happens to those willing to risk life and limb. The more I think about it the more I loathe our government...

The VA treats you like a child, takes a suspicious attitude and assumes you are working the system and malingering. My experience with the VA can be summed up in a simple acronym: BOHICA!

When I went to the VA for nightmares, anxiety attacks, and sleeplessness, they told me it was due to poor diet, lack of exercise, and 'life changes'. It had nothing to do with my time in Iraq, or my deployment as a prison guard to GTMO. I was medicated and sent on my merry way while my psychiatrist retired. I was unaware until I called for an appointment to inform him that I was no longer taking his medication, and told that my doctor was gone and unless it was an emergency, no one could see me for 2 months. 9 months later, I still get packages of pills in the mail and not a single phone call or anything from the doctors. I now seek care outside the VA system and pay out of pocket so I can be treated like a human being, not Private Snuffy.


I'd be glad to talk to anyone who is considering enlistment in a time of war and explain what the individual cost of service in this war has been for me and my brothers, and why they might consider serving the nation in another capacity.

The U.S. is a corporation, they kill the people that give up all of their rights (which saluting, by the way, is a sign of your surrender.) and then take their life insurance from the military after 6 months of death.

People whom join the military sign a contract giving up everything.

The Patriot Act pretty much destroyed The constitution, the bill of rights, and any other amended "freedom" people think they have.

There are reasons the Illuminati use Christians as financial slaves.

reply to post by John_Brown


Thank you so much for sharing that. It really can help open others eyes which need to sometimes be peeled open. Those symptoms you spoke of sound like PTSD. Not saying I'm a doctor and that you don't know what it is but after my brothers died I had the same type of thing happen and that's what it was. Again, thank you.

reply to post by Quickfix


God, the patriot act was pretty much the first and pivotal act and law that will undermine our entire system of agency, independence and freedom. If anything is the sure smoking gun it is the damn patriot act, IMHO anyway.

reply to post by John_Brown


You know, I agree with you. I have an older friend, who worked a desk job during the Viet Nam war. He's not healthy, and I have accompanied him several times to the VA hospital in Jackson, MS. All he gets for his appointments are a bunch of pills, that contradict the meds he gets at other Dr. offices that are not VA affiliated, even though he lists those meds before seeing the VA doc. He has even requested that some meds not be sent to him.

I don't know about you, but this guy has a huge stockpile of pills at his home........they keep sending them, even when he's requested they stop!

To me, they seem to want to fix everything with a pill, which for my friend, is not free, anyway. He still has to pay something for them, because I have seen the bills. The VA makes it very confusing, lumping the bill for all the meds into one, so, he's afraid if he makes a big stink out of getting the ones he doesn't need, that they will stop sending him the ones he needs, which has happened.

This system, along with the point of this original thread is very messed up, in my opinion.

reply to post by Crossfate


The biggest turning point for America was in 1933 when F.D.R. made the "New Deal" and basically put the U.S. into receivership.

Whom ever wrote some of the things F.D.R. signed that year is response-able for everything after 1933.

All rights were removed in 1933 and every bill and amendment is just a lie built off another lie there after.

Oh and I am sorry to report but people in the Military are expendable..

[edit on 6-5-2010 by Quickfix]

reply to post by Quickfix


They might be treated expendable by our wonderful caring government and might be closed minded but they are still individuals fighting for what they believe and any man that does that deserves merit, just need to be enlightened, if that's possible.