Fallen Heroes: The Return to Civilian Disability

Zen Garcia - December 2003

During this time of honoring heroes, we celebrate sacrifice, duty, honor, and the plight of soldiers abroad. We salute their commitment to our nation and our people. We cherish the memory of all veterans but esprcially those which died in barrle fighting to protect our freedoms. We must also remember the new generation of soldiers returning mangled with life-long disabilities; missing pieces of themselves surrendered to the cause of war. From hence forward there will be nights, haunting memories of times past, before the war and insane circumstance, when they lived 'normally' like all other people wanting nothing more than peace, prosperity, the normal American dream. Realities forever changed, young men and women lie in beds recovering, trying to gather what's left of the unbroken as they ponder future recourse and what the new day will bring.

Many soldiers joined the military as a result of how they felt when the Twin Towers fell on that fateful day in lower Manhattan, September 11th, 2001. They had determined to take a patriotic stance in defense of our nation, to do something that might protect their families and the lives of their children. Some had joined the military as a way to escape mediocre jobs, a desperate economy, and lives of restless frustration with friends, who like them had no sense of optimism for what the future hold. Many lean on the military to discipline themselves, access adventure while at the same time invest in later education as follow-up to a military career. Some joined as military reserves thinking limited service a great way of supplementing income without necessarily having to devote all of oneself to full time military service. And so they joined at a time when they knew our nation was to go to war. This would be their way of honoring those who had in other times stood up in defense of our nation. 300,000 had so far served tours of duty in Iraq, many returned lives intact able to go on to other things. Others though would find themselves critically injured, facing futures with life long disabilities.

21 year old, Jay Briseno from Manassas Park, Va., was in Baghdad on a sweltering afternoon in June 2003 when out of nowhere a bullet pierced the back of his neck. The army rushed Briseno to one hospital after another, saving him from multiple heart attacks and strokes until finally he stabilized enough to be shipped back stateside. Briseno is a high level quadriplegic tethered to a respirator forgotten by the war that rages on without him, chewing up other young men and women, leaving them equally destroyed families left to help out where they can.

His care was left to his parents and sisters initially as all struggled to adjust. His father, Joe quit his job to be with his son. "From the beginning all we got from the VA was lip service. They questioned every piece of equipment we asked for. They told us Jay should be in an institution. They told us to give up on him. We were desperate when these people from the Army called and said, Do you have what you need? Is there any way we can help?" Thousand's like the Briseno family will be forced to navigate the difficult and often frustrating course of learning about the benefits and services of disabled veterans. With ongoing cuts to the VA and benefits for veterans, the fight to maintain services for those returning from the Iraq war is an uphill battle.

A few weeks after the Iraq war started and just 3 days before President Bush spent the Memorial Day weekend thanking the nation's veterans for their service, he proposed slashing Veteran's health care by $1 billion next year. An administration memo proposed a 3.4 percent cut in the Veterans Administration budget for 2005, from $29.7 billion to $28.7 billion, this follows other cutbacks since George W. became president. It is not that there is a lack of funding for the military, in fact this year we will spend $16.9 billion more on military increasing funding to $399.1 billion dollars. America spends more on military spending than the combined annual spending of the next 18 nation's combined.

You would think that the President and our congress would find it a priority to take care of those who give of themselves to defend our freedoms. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois' 9th Congressional District said, "I find it incomprehensible that a plan to reduce benefits for veterans in Illinois and across the country would even be contemplated at a time when hundreds of thousands of active-duty soldiers are risking their lives in Iraq. I join the Disabled American Veterans in asking, Is there is no honor left in the hallowed halls of our government that you choose to dishonor the sacrifices of our nation's heroes and rob our programs--health care and disability compensation--to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.''

For decades, the Veterans Administration has struggled to keep up with providing health care to the 7.5 million veterans enrolled. At any one time, more than 3,000 vets await their first visit to the doctor. Those whose injuries from battle qualify them for disability compensation wait six months to two years to receive it. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have waited 54 days on average to get their first veteran disability compensation checks. With VA's costs increasing by 10% to 15% a year, and newly disabled veterans draining resources the system is under a serious strain. According to David Uchic, spokesman for Paralyzed Veterans of America, says the military can not keep up with the number of soliders returning wounded and needing benefits."It doesn't just end with them going to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center in Washington] and being treated. This is a lifelong situation for them for the next 60 to 80 years. So is the system going to be ready to serve them for all those years? That is the question."

The next question is how many have been hurt from this war? The Pentagon defines both combat related and non-combat related injury and death. Their official tally shows only deaths and wounded in action. It doesn't include "non-combat" injured, those whose injuries were not the result of enemy fire. The 'official' count of injured in Iraq according to a UPI press release dated November 14th, 2004 has just now surpassed 9,200. However, if you study the number of soldiers flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the U.S. military hospital in Germany that receives all injured soldiers evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan and the number of soldiers back in the States trying to get Veterans benefits, actual numbers swell to over 42,000 and this does not include the number of soldiers who will return and then go through post traumatic stress disorder as many soldiers did upon return from Viet Nam.

Bullets, RPG's, and mortar rounds discriminate less about casualty and being killed than our government's definition of being wounded in action. The Pentagon will only recognize a soldier's sacrifice for our country under the strictest mandate and interpretations of what it means to acquire a combat related injury. Take the case of Joel Gomez for instance, Gomez, was riding in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle hunting insurgents on a dirt road when the ground gave way and they ended up rolling down the mountain. They landed upside-down in the Tigris River. Both of his buddies were killed and Gomez became a quadriplegic unable to move. Though he was in a military situation, doing a mission that was combat related the Pentagon defined him as "non-combat injured."

Another example: Chris Schneider, a young Kansas father, part of a Reserve unit providing security for a supply convoy traveling 100 miles through hostile territory, was injured when another convoy of heavy equipment transporters slammed into his truck throwing him 50 feet through the air until he landed on the road. The second transport in that convoy locked up brakes, sliding 50 feet until it came to rest on his pelvis wedging his lower leg into the axle. Schneider now uses an artificial leg and walks with a limp. According to 60 minutes which did this interview, he too is not counted on the Pentagon's casualty count.

Though it doesn't make sense to the soldiers that have returned from Iraq, 62 year old civilian Gene Bolles has a good idea. Dr. Bolles has spent two years at the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, where he specializes in brain and spinal injuries. As a neurosurgeon with 32 years of practice, he admits he has never seen trauma to this degree. He says, "What you see on TV and what you see in reality, is like night and day. The embedding of the journalists made the war out to be like a football game. The true effects of war are not reported at all. In fact, the Bush administration has forbidden journalists from taking pictures of wounded or dead soldiers or even the hundreds of caskets that have been flown in from war. Many have said that the administration does not want what happened during Vietnam to happen today, that being loss of popular support for the war. Especially in wake of no weapons of mass destruction, no connection to Al-Qaeda, no imminent threat, and the UN stance of the war against Iraq being an illegal war."

60 Minutes asked the Department of Defense for an interview on non-combatant injury- totals. The DOD declined but sent a letter alleging "More than 15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq." However, Dr. Bolles says, "I've seen figures that are now upwards of 30,000. I know that at least 20,000 have been air-evacuated into the Landstuhl system." According to some veteran groups, 33,000 have sought VA care, 26,000 have filed VA disability claims, and 10,000 have sought VA counseling. With the Pentagon's official casualty number exceeding 9,200 and unofficial 'non-combative' injury number exceeding 33,000, America better get ready for a whole population of soldiers that will need her support. I ask you for the sake of those soldiers who fight because they believe in America and the freedoms we represent to the world, Call your Representatives and your Senators and tell them to support Veteran's benefits as many, many will need them. Our government owes responsibility to those soldiers sent off to fight an illegal and immoral war that Bush insisted was necessary. Should they become injured during the process of engagement, we should absolutely and without question, honor their service by providing all the things which will aide in their return from war and reintegration back into American society with all the love and support they deserve.