Home > Injured soldiers say they’re languishing at Ft. Lewis for no reason
Injured soldiers say they’re languishing at Ft. Lewis for no reason
by Open-Publishing - Thursday 2 September 2004By ANDREW KRAMER
FORT LEWIS — About a dozen Oregon National Guard soldiers say they languished for months at Fort Lewis because the Army lacked a protocol to allow them to return to Oregon to convalesce.
The wounded soldiers also waited hours for doctor appointments, were forced to fill out confusing paperwork and faced months of delays regarding their benefits, they told Brig. Gen. Raymond Byrne, acting adjutant general of the Oregon National Guard, yesterday.
"I feel that the system is lacking all common guidance," Sgt. William Harris of Bend said.
"I don’t have anything to fall back on. There’s nothing for me here on the inside, and nothing on the outside."
Guard officials concede the soldiers, some of whom had only slight injuries, could have returned to their families, perhaps commuting to a base or a clinic for care.
The problem arose from an oversight in the Army’s war planning, which failed to anticipate the large number of wounded soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Col. Douglas Eliason, chief medical officer with the Oregon Guard.
He said a new program introduced in Oregon two weeks ago will send more Guard members home to heal. Under the program, soldiers will be provided with a job suited to their injuries at a National Guard armory and given treatment options at a Veterans Affairs clinic or with private doctors.
Around the country, close to 5,000 reserve and Guard soldiers are receiving medical care at active-duty bases because of the military’s reliance on reserve soldiers for the occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
From Oregon, 49 National Guard soldiers are convalescing from wounds at Army bases around the country — some because they need specialized care for severe injuries, but many because the Army had no system to allow them to return home. Twenty-six of them are at Fort Lewis.
"Nobody really anticipated we would have a demand like this," Eliason said.
"They’re on a remote post, with people they don’t know, and far from their support system of friends and family," he said. "There’s certainly some anger with these soldiers."
The soldiers discussed their problems yesterday at the meeting with Byrne, who shook their hands and thanked them for their service.
The soldiers, in turn, loosed an angry tirade about Army red tape and, some said, inferior medical care.
"If you guys expect us to just sit here and suck it all in, I’m sorry, sir," Harris said. "With all due respect, I’ve lost my respect for the uniform."
Away from their families, the soldiers said they had little to do but languish in the barracks between doctor visits.
Sgt. Rick Hardy of Milton-Freewater ruptured a spinal disc in a rollover accident in northern Iraq eight months ago.
He has medical appointments about twice a week at Fort Lewis, but no other duties.
He said he spends his days walking in a forest and photographing Mount Rainier, which is visible from the base.
"I just want to go home," he said. "I want to be demobilized."
Byrne said the Guard would investigate the soldiers’ concerns and try to untangle the skein of Army policies, VA rules and state laws that kept the soldiers at base unnecessarily.