Jerrald Jensen served in the army in Afghanistan in 2006, in 2007 he was injured by an IED that destroyed his jaw, all of his teeth, and made half of his face numb. He received a purple heart. He spent two years in rehabilitation and surgery, then volunteered to go back. While running to a military post he tripped and fell on a rock, breaking his newly formed titanium jaw and injuring his knee, but he stayed caring for the wounded until his wound was badly infected and he we forced to leave. He was sent to the Warrior Transition Unit in Fort Carson Colorado. That was when things went bad.
His commanding officers there, many who had never been on a tour of duty, wrote him up for minor infractions impossible to meet with his disability, and after failing a drug test that Jensen said was a false positive from his many medicines taken for his injury, was almost forced out of the army dishonorably, without benefits including disability. If not for another commanding officer calling the WTU and telling them to let him be medically discharged, instead of misconduct discharge, he would be without benefits unable to fix his damaged face.
These articles tell a story that is the definition of chaptering out of the military. Jensen was lucky he had a high-ranking friend to defend him. It is estimated that 76000 soldiers are chaptered out without benefits. Many of the reasons they are chaptered out are for misconduct, which can be directly related to PTSD and other battlefield psychological issues that army commanders refuse to acknowledge.
"'At a policy level the Army is saying it takes care of these guys but at a command level it is not happening,' said Lenore Warger, a counselor who has worked with discharged soldiers for 12 years at the veterans rights organization The Quaker House near Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/11/11/exclusive-76-000soldierschapteredoutofmilitarybenefitssince06.html
http://cdn.csgazette.biz/soldiers/day2.html
No comments:
Post a Comment