(no subject)

[coyotegoth]

Via supergee: “I had been covering veterans' issues for several years and thought I'd developed a thick skin. But the pain on the other end of the telephone line was difficult to stomach. Sergeant Chuck Luther, now back from Iraq, was describing his journey to hell and back. The worst part, he said, wasn't battling insurgents or even the mortar blast that tossed him to the ground and slammed his head against the concrete — it was the way he was treated by the U.S. Army when he went to the aid station and sought medical help.

“In gruesome detail, Luther described what happened to him at Camp Taji's aid station. He thought he would receive medical care. Instead he was confined to an isolation chamber and held there for over a month, under enforced sleep deprivation, until he agreed to sign papers saying that he was ill before coming to Iraq and thus not eligible for disability and medical benefits. "They wanted me to say I had a 'personality disorder,'" Luther told me.

…

“After a month, Luther was willing to sign anything — and did. Soon after he signed his name to a personality disorder discharge, he was whisked back to Fort Hood and informed about a PD discharge's disastrous consequences. No disability pay, no long-term medical care, and because he didn't serve out his contract, he'd have to pay back a portion of his signing bonus. ‘They told me I now owed the Army $1,500.’”

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

The full article at the Nation is truly chilling. Not merely that it happened to Luther, but that it appears to have happened in various ways to a whole number of soldiers, with the assistance of superior officers whom they had hitherto trusted. It feels almost like something out of Joseph Heller, except that, instead of being told they're sane, they're being written off as mad in order to save money.