ptsd Army Kicking Out Sick Vets ,saying It Is Misconduct?

[Berta]

Army discharging ill soldiers for misconduct?

( Of course they are,in my opinion)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaruiz/2013/08/02/is-the-army-improperly-discharging-wounded-ill-soldiers-for-misconduct/

Link courtesy of Colonel Dan.

In part:

“The Gazette series, reported by Dave Philipps, looked at three separate incidents each involving a combat veteran in which units at Fort Carson in Colorado appeared to willfully ignore mental and physical health conditions that played a role in misconduct, such as traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain.

Kash Alvaro, for example, was diagnosed with PTSD and TBI after enduring multiple bomb blasts in Afghanistan in 2009. When he returned to Fort Carson, he was cited and punished for violating code by missing appointments, missing work, arriving late to formation and getting in an argument.”

TBI and PTSD ,that might appear to lead to misconduct by the very virtue of these serious disabilities, in my opinion, have become the Mil's way of preventing retention and re enlistments when a war has pealed down.....

De javu all over again,post Korea, Vietnam, etc etc

It is crap plain and simple.

[71M10]

We will also see vets geting chaptered out for failure to maintain body fat standards. I experienced it in 1988, when I was chaptered for being one tenth of a percentage point over(the perils of being in a garrison unit). 5 years ago, the local National Guard unit cleared an obese SGT with a Cardiac condition (on meds for it) for deployment to Mosul. Its amazing how the enforcement of standards change(but the standards themselves do not). How many soldiers are put out on misconduct when their unit is set to deploy? I would make the bold assertion that not many are, Cause they need every soldier!

[john999]

Discharging soldiers with PTSD and drug or alcohol problems was almost SOP after Vietnam. I got kicked out when I begged for help and told the XO I would not leave his office until I got some help. The result was a special courts martial. My JAG told me to sign the paper for the AR 635-212 or I would be kicked out on LTH. Some choice. I was a patient at the VA mental ward within 6 months of discharge.

John

[Trigirl13]

This is just sad!!!

[WVSERVER]

There's a good documentary that was done by PBS call the wounded platoon it also on Netflix it talks about the problems in Carson

[Testvet]

didn't the Army promise to stop this behavior about 2006? I believe that episode started at Fort Carson with a SGT POGUE and vets that had been to combat were supposed to get a chapter 61 retirement if they had PTSD so bad they could not be sent back to full duty, to prevent this type of discharge by the Army to start with, the Generals were realizing how bad it was to treat an all volunteer force like this, to keep sending them back over and over again, and then just dispose of them and the families with no benefits or help. But we are now back to the bean counters and cutting costs no matter what, and the Army will be cut to levels worse than that between WW2 and the Korean war, Congress will tell the President he has the best force in the world but it will go untrained, no funds for fuel, ammo, or training exercises, and pray that unmanned aircraft will be enough to control the bad guys of the world and they can fly them off of aircraft carriers, because the F22s and F18s will be too expensive to put in the air talk about meat cleavers, no benefits and no promotions the military is going to get real ugly and I hate to see what they have planned for the VA

[TiredCoastie]

NPR has done a lot on what's gone on at Fort Carson over the years. This is not how we should be treating a troops, Marines, airmen, sailors, etc. Abysmal.

Either you care for your people or you don't. If you don't care, you don't have any business being in leadership...plain and simple.

Those troops need help, but the leadership doesn't know how to actually help them. And it's universal problem. We've all seen it. The problem is that there is a concept that a drowning man just needs more weight to square him away. So leadership throws him a cement block rather than a lifeline.