Army Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum
:mad: Just when you thought the Army had stopped digging itself further into a hole with the medical/disability issues, the bureaucracy strikes out in a supreme display of cluelessness.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=18492376
Quote:
Army officials in upstate New York instructed representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum Army base with their military disability paperwork last year. That paperwork can be crucial because it helps determine whether soldiers will get annual disability payments and health care after they're discharged.
.....
"To be tossed aside like a worn-out pair of boots is pretty disheartening," the soldier says. "I always believed the Army would take care of me if I did the best I could, and I've done that."
At a restaurant near Fort Drum, the soldier described his first briefing with the VA office on base. According to the soldier, the VA official told a classroom full of injured troops, "We cannot help you review the narrative summaries of your medical problems." The official said the VA used to help soldiers with the paperwork, but Army officials saw soldiers from Fort Drum getting higher disability ratings with the VA's help than soldiers from other bases. The Army told the VA to stop helping Fort Drum soldiers describe their army injuries, and the VA did as it was told.
....
According to Army spokesman George Wright, the Tiger Team thought the VA should not be helping soldiers with their medical documents. The Army delivered that message to VA officials in Buffalo, N.Y., who went along with the request, even though the VA's assistance complied with Army policy.
The Army declined to provide any information about the Tiger Team members' identities or their motivations in asking the VA to stop reviewing the soldiers' paperwork. However, private attorney Mara Hurwitt points out that the Army has a financial incentive to keep soldiers' disability ratings low.
"The more soldiers you have who get disability retirements, the more retirement pay is coming out of your budget," Hurwitt says.
Whether the reason behind the request is accurate or not, it just doesn't make sense that the Army would continue to turn away help.
It's no wonder we can't get strategic communications together.
Sounds to me like a question
worth asking of our Congressmen and Senators?
I just passed the exerpts along to my congressman, Tom Cole. Incidentally, Mara Hurwitt was a Naval officer who was a student of mine at CGSC. Darned bright officer.
Tell Congress - most of the problems in both systems
are a result of Congressional tinkering. Congress frequently is apprised of a 'problem' (meaning a constituent has a specific issue which may or may not be valid) and then reacts (the Congroid involved slaps an amendment onto the appropriation bill) and passes a law to 'fix' the problem.
The problem is they also work offline by contacting DoD or the VA to 'suggest' certain fixes. Unfortunately, all these fixes, by amendment and by offline interference result in creating chaos and adding tons of bureaucratic complexity to what should be simple and forthright procedures and the disability systems -- both -- are as good examples of that as is our over 16,000 page Tax Code.
As always, the troops pay the price. :mad:
All that said, I agree that the whole system needs to be scrapped and re-done but my normal cheerful optimism is replaced, whenever Congress is involved, by extremely dour pessimism; no good can come of it... :eek:
I'm not at all sure that all the folks
involved are heroes and I'm even more sure that this is one side of a story and even more sure than that the disconnect between the services -- all of them -- and some (not all) 'veterans' organizations is quite adversarial.
I'd also suggest that both links provide only superficial knowledge of what may or may not have occurred; that the VA and Armed Forces differences in the handling and judgment of disability amounts is long standing, that a VA workers assistance with the Army's processes might sow more confusion than it could help.
As WM pointed out, a lot of 'Veterans Service' organizations -- to include State government agencies get involved in the process and many have muddied the water as much as they've helped.
Having a son who was medically discharged due to a jump injury, I do know the Army process is lengthy and tedious (as are many things...) but it was, in his case at least, fair (and that tracks with friends who have gone the same route); that he had a wait for the VA benefit to kick in and that much of that delay is due to the fact that the Army gives you severance pay when you're medically discharged. By law (Your Congress again) the VA must recoup that amount before the VA pension begins.
In the case cited in the first link the guy says: "“The Army certified me 10 percent disabled and medically discharged me in December 2006. I appealed that determination and was eventually certified 100 percent unemployable because of my injuries,” said Delmonte, who now receives a VA disability pension."" Possible but last time I knew, the Army didn't do that 'unemployable' bit, the VA did -- so I think he's at least mixing apples and potatoes
Things may not be all they seem in this case...
Been there done that. Several times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John T. Fishel
receiving end of a Congressional inquiry conducted at the staffer level. The real issue was that things were not happeningfast enough for the soldier in question who was concerned that nothing at all was happening. A phone conversation between me and the staffer clarified things - the staffer understood that I was on the soldier's side but it was going to take a little time to resolve.
My experience with Congress and staffers has been that they are patriotic people who try to be reasonable when doing constituent service.
Cheers
JohnT
There was one minor problem with the kid who was kidnapped off Hay Street in Fayetteville and whisked to Miami in a white Cadillac and whose mother was convinced this was all that was required to explain his sixteen days AWOL/ UA. Fortunately a move from her cousin the Congessman's staffer to that persons boss got that straightened out... :wry:
Don't let my Congress bashing obscure the fact that I think I've said several times that they generally mean well -- and that I understand they're necessary and think they generally do an all round marginally acceptable job.
I agree with you that they are very responsive and responsible when doing constituent service -- my concern is that when they get into their legislating and oversight roles they in too many cases do not understand all they know about what they're doing. Let me also clarify that when I mention many staffers have pet ideas they push, that too is in the lawmaking and scrutiny side of the work and is particularly applied to the Armed Services Committees, their members and staffers.
I do not question the loyalty or patriotism of anyone on Capitol Hill. Nor do I have any doubt about their concern for their State or District and its voters.
I do question their tendency to put those concerns and a quest for reelection as well as their political party ahead of the good of the Nation even though I understand the realities of the situation. I also question some laws that get passed, generally as kneejerk reaction to an event, simply so they can say "We did something" and a number of laws that seem to transcend reality. In short, I wish they put as much effort into the nuts and bolts of their lawmaking as they do into voter services.
Oh, I'm aware of all that and I don't disagree
with the concept. Strongly support it, in fact -- it's far better than a Parliamentary system in my view. I also understand all politics is pandering and the art of the possible. I do not object to sausage making, love Bratwurst in fact.
My complaint is with the corruption of that model you cite -- the two year elected Representatives seem to stay a whole lot longer then they need to; the "staid and considering" chamber is unstaid and as flighty as is the emotional chamber; the Presidents sitting in between in the last seventy years seem to be more concerned with their crooked and venal parties than they do with nation and all of them, all 536, seem to forget that their Oath bears a great deal of similarity to the Oath taken by those military minds. The Consitution is more often ignored than followed... :(
The Supreme Court hasn't annoyed me yet but they probably will. ;)