I used to feel bad that I had never joined the military (though there were valid health reasons for this), but after what I have been seeing and hearing the last few weeks, my guilt has evaporated like the morning dew on a warm spring day. No country, people, or ideology is worth putting up with the treatment our soldiers and veterans have been putting up with as recently reported by the Washington Post pertaining to the outpatient treatment center of Walter Reed Hospital, known as Building 18.
It is the duty of the American soldier to accept his assignments with no complaints, and as well trained as they are, it is hard to break that cycle of obedience once they are returned to what passes for a semblance of normal life. Therefore, it is no surprise that they offered not a lot of complaints due to their treatment.
What is surprising and disgusting is that when these complaints were made, they were most of the time not looked into, and what times they were they were generally swept under the rug.
Actually, this is a systemic problem that goes well beyond our recent era of the Iraq War and the “war on terror”, this is a problem of long duration, one that I am actually somewhat familiar with through family members.
One relative with advanced dementia and prostrate cancer was refused admittance to a VA Hospital, though after some wrangling and threats he was finally taken in-for one night. He died two weeks later. They tried then to stiff his widow for the hospital bill he had incurred from the necessity of his stay at an area hospital after all the other times he was refused admittance, even though he had been an out-patient there for years. By the time he was correctly diagnosed, he was too far gone.
Another relative was lucky enough to receive 30 per cent disability due to work related back problems, while a general whom he had some familiarity with received full 100 per cent disability after his back went out, due to assuming a rigid posture throughout the entirety of a transcontinental flight.
It’s who you know, and who you are. No wonder they call them grunts. Severe discomfort will do that to you.
Add to this the fact that most of the people sent to Iraq these days are not adequately trained or equipped for the job they are expected to perform, and are kept way past their normal terms of enlistment without adequate leave, or psychological counseling and other therapy, and you have a situation that is only going to get worse in the long run, no matter how shiny the veneer they throw temporarily over the surface to pretty it up, till the next big story breaks.
For now, in the meantime, let's hear it for the Washington Post, who in at least this one instance lived up to their obligations, though it took them long enough.
