Military deploys unfit GIs to Iraq

[Beaker]

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8268275.htm

Military deploys unfit GIs to Iraq

Thu, Mar. 25, 2004
BY DAVID GOLDSTEIN
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — To meet the demand for troops in Iraq, the military has been deploying some National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who aren't fit for combat. More than a dozen members of the Guard and reserves told Knight Ridder they were shipped off to battle with little attention paid to their medical histories...

David Lloyd, a 44-year-old mechanic with the Tennessee National Guard, died of a heart attack in Iraq in August. His wife, Pamela Lloyd, said her husband didn't know he'd had a problem, but his autopsy showed three blockages in his coronary arteries. "He should have never been deployed," she said. "He was supposed to have been given a thorough physical. He had none. The only thing he had was the shots."

A high-ranking noncommissioned officer in the Army Reserve, who didn't want his name used for fear of reprisals by his superiors, has been assigned to the medical hold at Fort Knox, Ky., since last summer. He had had surgery on his neck for a bulging disc two months before his unit was activated earlier last year. His doctors had told him to limit his activities for six months, and not to lift anything heavier than 30 pounds.
But the noncommissioned officer said that after looking at his medical records and asking him to raise his arms above his head, the medical screening officer at Fort Snelling in Minnesota, where his unit reported in January 2003, told him, "You seem to be good to go." By last March, he was in Iraq carrying 75 pounds of equipment on his back daily. Constantly in pain, he was taking heavy doses of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. By May, he'd been sent home and began an odyssey through military hospitals, ending with a metal plate in his neck to replace the surgically repaired disc that had fragmented during his deployment. "It's a nightmare," the noncommissioned officer said. "I believe my neck would have healed up if I had time. The pain was leaving, and now I'm stuck with the pain again."

Michael Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official, acknowledged that some medically unqualified troops have been sent to Iraq but said "the percentages are extremely small." He said the Pentagon was taking steps to improve medical screening. How many soldiers are unfit is unclear. Gerry Mosley, a retired first sergeant with a reserve unit from Mississippi, said the practice of sending medically unqualified troops was widespread in the Guard and reserves. "It wasn't about healthy troops," he said in an interview. "It was about the number of troops." "Soldiers with medical conditions that would be adversely affected by deployment were 'rubber-stamped' as fit for duty," Mosley says in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing next week on military health care. "Medical profiles were ignored."

It's amazing that the military will probably contitnue to vote for this mis-administration.

[Az_lefty]

1. I can tell you from experience this is true...

When we were activated for Iraq in Feb of 03 we were rushed through the process, including physicals, and sent off. After being in Iraq for 2 months we had 15 soldiers back at the Mob station with medical problems, none of them caused by duty in Iraq.

[Columbia]

3. Probably true, but they are exceptions to the rule

Though, I haven't seen it personally myself. All those I saw deployed to Iraq were asked if they had any condition (medical or not) that made them undeployable. Those who had, were not deployed.

Where did you serve, toilet?

[Turley]

2. If you have a medical condition

which limits your ability to perform your duties, it is YOUR OWN responsibility to alert your chain of command and you should not be drilling (and collecting taxpayer money). Reservists are only on duty one weekend and month and are responsible for maintaining their own health and apropriate level of fitness. If they have a problem, they need to report it.

I don't have much sympathy for guys (and gals) who collect the paycheck but suddenly come down with medical conditions when it's time to deploy.

I deployed to active twice out of the reserves and we didn't have time to put anyone through complete medicals. Everyone was passing PT and we got our shots and hit the road.

This is all about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If you're too sick to deploy, then you're too sick to drill and collect the check.

[happyslug]

4. That is almost funny

Most of the people in my unit did not have private health insurance so did not KNOW if they had any serious health problems, they depended on the Health report of the Military Doctor. If those doctors do not report anything wrong, the enlistees believe their are healthy even if their are not.

I give a personal example, I went through Boot camp in 1981, afterwords I started to develop Xanthomas on my elbows (which any one could see), These became quit massive in numbers by the time I turned 25. I did not have medical coverage at that time so I could not afford to ask a doctor about them. I dismissed them as some sort of wart etc for they gave me no pain and caused me no problems.

I even transferred with this condition from the Pennsylvania National Guard to the Texas National Guard and back. I re-enlisted and went through a Military physical. No one commented on them (their were reported but that is all).

I finally had a job with medical coverage after nine years in the Guard and went to a Doctor, who within two minutes of my comment about them ordered medical tests. Test which confirmed his diagnosis I had Hyperlipoproteinemia (Extremely high level of Cholesterol and triglycerides). As he told me at the time my blood was more fat than blood. My Doctor put me on medications to relieve the problem.

My point is I did not have this problem in Boot Camp, but I did have the problem within a year of Boot Camp. I had a medical problem that could have caused me to have a massive heart attack and I did not know it, but any competent Doctor would have been able to diagnosis the problem. No doctor did and since I had no Private Health Insurance neither did I for I did not know how bad a condition I was in.

That is the problem with calling up the National Guard and the Reserves, the Military does NOT know the medical conditions of their members and neither does the members. The only way to be sure would be have a compete medical checkup including tests of potential problems. Many of the enlistees in the National Guard and Reserves are in it for the extra money in brings in per month. If they had a civilian job that paid more, they tended to leave after their enlistment expired. The enlisted people who stayed tended to have low paying jobs with no medical coverage.

My point is that most enlisted members of the Reserves and National Guard do NOT know their medical Condition and assume that if their pass the Medical exam of the Military they is nothing wrong with them. Your statement assumed this but as I pointed out above this is a fallacy, most members of the National Guard and Reserves do NOT KNOW THEIR OWN MEDICAL CONDITION. Most of the members of my unit had NO PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE and as such did NOT KNOW HOW HEALTHY THEY WERE (or were not).

In my own case, I was unfit for hard military action within one year of boot camp. Any competent doctor on seeing my elbows would have had me tested and would have found my medical condition. None did for no one wanted to find such problems (then they would have to address them such as telling me good bye and I needed some medication I could not afford).

I passed the PT tests but that did not make me ready for combat. I suspect they were other people in my same situation, without knowledge of any of their own health condition and should not be deployed unless subject to a complete medical check up. This is the point of the article, merely saying people should report their medical condition to their change of command is nonsense, you can NOT report want you do not know. Many people in the Guard and Reserves do NOT know their medical condition and when they are called up for overseas duty the Military has to give them a better exam than what was reported in the article.

[burrowowl]

8. Right ON!

and as a Commander at Fort Bliss said: The NG are bullet magnets.
The NG is supposed to be here in the 'homeland' for throwing a few sandbags on a river bank and oh I forgot being called up by a gov. to shoot people.
However, they (Bu$hco) must be desparate to enroll people who are not up to snuff for combat.
DRAFT and ACCEPTED CASUALITY NUMBERS? as if we will ever know soon.

[happyslug]

10. You forgot the guard's other function

Some place for men to old to be in the boyscouts can still play at war without being shot at but only a couple of days a month.

[yardwork]

5. Read the article.

One man died of a heart attack in Iraq. The autopsy showed that he had three blocked arteries. He didn't know. Seems like the military exam should have revealed his heart problem. Isn't that the point of a medical exam before shipping out?

Other people have diabetes and asthma, chronic illnesses that are controllable with medication and other treatment. As long as their diseases are under control, they are well enough to serve in the reserves. Sent to Iraq, with no refrigeration for their meds, poor diet, and poor medical care, their illnesses went into crisis.

Was America's national security so endangered by Iraq that we had to send people with questionable health to serve in the war we started ourselves?

[yltlatl]

6. No, it's because they're in this for the long haul

They just need to fling these poor bastards into the meat grinder while they can get the draft in gear.

[burrowowl]

7. DRAFT

anyone!?

[pippin]

9. hey! what the heck? Canon fodder

is canon fodder. Do any of us actually think for a minute whether the White House cares who or what they send as long as the rank and file is kept filled? :shrug: