UPDATE:: PENTAGON TO INVESTIGATE TREATMENT OF SICK, WOUNDED TROOPS

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> PENTAGON TO INVESTIGATE TREATMENT OF SICK, WOUNDED TROOPS

> Sun Oct 19 2003 19:32:21 ET

>

> The Pentagon will dispatch a team to investigate claims that hundreds of

> sick and wounded soldiers, including many who served in the Iraq war, are

> languishing -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors, the DRUDGE REPORT

> has learned.

>

> The move comes after UPI wire revealed details of the soldiers' plight:

>

> Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

> By MARK BENJAMIN, UPI Investigations Editor

>

> FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- The National Guard and Army Reserve

> soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so

> poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with

> reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that

> no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 --

> Veterans Day.

>

> " I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done

> everything the Army has asked me to do, " said Sgt. 1st Class Willie

> Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels

> served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi

Freedom

> and the first Gulf War. " Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has

changed.

> I am treated like a third-class citizen. "

>

> Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get

> doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen

> since doubling over in pain there.

>

> After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent

of

> his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi.

> " They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still

> trying, " Buckels said.

>

> One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of

> the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq,

> approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and

National

> Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in

a

> sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

>

> The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls

" medical

> hold, " while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what

> benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

>

> Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an

> appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or

> months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.

>

> The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better

> treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are

> left to wallow in medical hold.

>

> " It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and Reserves, "

> said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she

> developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment.

>

> A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public affairs

> officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not returned.

>

> Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in

> medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described

> clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among

> previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them

> benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a " pre-existing

> condition, " prior to military service.

>

> Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular,

> gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air

> conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat

and

> humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

>

> Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy

dirt

> to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between

> otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an

> opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because

> many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block

> room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.

>

> They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick people.

>

> " I think it is disgusting, " said one Army Reserve member who went to Iraq

> and asked that his name not be used.

>

> That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a sudden

> onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten steadily worse.

> He shakes uncontrollably.

>

> He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a

> pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax

shots

> the Army gave him.

>

> " They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly, " he said.

> " I did not have a problem until I got those shots. "

>

> First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with the

> 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from the

Iraqis

> as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles. Mosley said he was

> healthy before the war; he could run two miles in 17 minutes at 48 years

old.

>

> But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of

> breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus. He also thinks the anthrax

> vaccine may have hurt him. Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury

> there.

>

> Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself looking

> at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

>

> Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder block

> barracks. He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more

> doctor appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov.

> 11. He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the

Army

> Reserves.

>

> " Now, I would not go back to war for the Army, " Mosley said.

>

> Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to see

> doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

>

> " The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and they

> put us on hold, " said another soldier who returned from Iraq six weeks ago

> with a serious back injury. He has gotten to see a doctor only two times

> since he got back, he said.

>

> Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has had

> real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in Iraq.

> " There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't perform

> the surgeries that have to be done, " that soldier said. " Look at these

> mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them, " he said, gesturing to the

bunks.

> " There are people here who got back in April but did not get their

> surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families. "

>

> The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

>

> In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in Portsmouth,

New

> Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of the backbone of the

> military.

>

> " Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror, " Bush

> said. " And you're making your state and your country proud. "

>

> -0-

>

> Mark Benjamin can be contacted at mbenjamin

>

> http://drudgereport.com/flash3.htm

>