The Pentagon's Achilles Heel

This past weekend, United Press International's Mark Benjamin -- assisted by Steven Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veteran's advocacy group -- broke the story that hundreds of injured Iraq War veterans were stranded in dismal barracks at Ft. Stewart, Ga., while they were awaiting medical care.

"They're being treated like dogs," is how one officer who didn't want his name used put it, speaking to TomPaine.com before the UPI story broke. "There is not a smile on this sector of the post. I have never seen as many sad people in one place in all my life."

The situation described by this officer and by UPI was one where injured National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers were languishing while waiting for military doctors to fully diagnose their injuries and do the paperwork for future medical benefits. The veterans -- some with injuries that will become lifelong disabilities -- were living in large barracks with double bunk beds and no indoor plumbing. Soldiers who paid $10 day could get a smaller, shared room with air conditioning and a bathroom.

"I've been in [the military] for 30 ? years and never thought the Army would turn on its own like this," said First Sgt. Gerry Mosley, of the National Guard's 296th Transportation Company from Brookhaven, Miss. "I am not in a case by myself. They are telling you it's going to be four to six months if you're going through a medical evaluation."

The account given by Mosley and other soldiers at Ft. Stewart is at odds with the support-the-troops rhetoric from top Pentagon and White House officials. Yet it's part of a pattern of lapses in military health policies that have occurred during the course of the Iraq War.

In recent weeks, two separate congressional investigations by the General Accounting Office (GAO-04-158T and GAO-03-1171T) concluded the Army and Air Force largely ignored a 1997 law requiring all soldiers sent to war zones be given extensive pre- and post-deployment medical exams -- to avoid the unexplained medical problems that arose after the 1991 Persian Gulf War that became known as "Gulf War Syndrome."

Moreover, the months-long delays in getting medical care faced by the soldiers at Ft. Stewart are nearly identical to the delays faced by veterans of other wars as they seek care in the Veterans Administration health system. Fully funding the VA is a top priority of veterans' groups, who say the 2004 VA budget pending before Congress is under-funded by $1.8 billion.

"This is about what the administration says versus what they do," said Robinson, who is executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center.

But following the publication of UPI's story on Friday, Oct. 17, Mosley said the senior officers at Ft. Stewart met with the soldiers quoted in the news account and then started making basic improvements to the living conditions. Over the weekend, partitions were put between toilets and bunk beds, he said. Mosley also was told more doctors will be brought in.

Robinson, who repeated the story on CNN on Monday, Oct. 20, is bringing congressional investigators to Ft. Stewart on Tuesday, Oct. 21.

The Bigger Picture

Whether the situation at Ft. Stewart is the norm or an anomaly at military bases housing soldiers injured in Iraq is not known. The Pentagon has not commented. Ft. Stewart is only one base where injured troops from Iraq have been sent, according to soldiers and veterans' activists contacted.

It's also hard to determine how many soldiers have been injured in Iraq because, again, the Pentagon has not fully disclosed those numbers. Another UPI report, on Oct. 3, said nearly 4,000 soldiers had been medically evacuated from Iraq for non-combat reasons, quoting the Army Surgeon General's office. Those numbers have not been updated.