Thread: Screw the vets

It's American policy since the civil war! So, how do we change it?

Veterans' health care system fails Gretna Marine

Bill Walsh, Washington bureau September 08, 2007 9:55PM

STAFF PHOTO BY SUSAN POAG Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick, 25, of Terrytown lost a leg in a roadside bomb in Iraq. He is being featured in an HBO movie September 9 on amputee soldiers. He was 22 when he was injured. Schick said winding his way through the healthcare maze to get his benefits has been frustrating. "To get anything done, it is just horrible," said Schick.

WASHINGTON -- Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick says he was ready to die in Iraq. He wasn't prepared to come home in pieces.

The bomb that tore through the floor of his Humvee in the fall of 2004 shredded his legs and left arm. Forty-six surgeries later, Schick is an amputee still learning to cope with physical limitations that as a star high school athlete he never dreamed he would face.

Perhaps just as daunting has been learning to navigate the veterans' health care system, which he says demeans the sacrifice of all veterans.
"When you have to deal with the VA (Veterans Affairs) or TRICARE (the federal health insurance program), you feel beaten down," Schick said. "You are a number, and you feel like a number. It's a total, total beat-down."
Schick, 25, who grew up in Texas and Louisiana and now lives in Gretna, is one of the 10 injured veterans featured in an HBO film, "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," that airs tonight. The title of the documentary, produced by "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, refers to the date that the injured narrowly escape death and realize that they are still alive.


Humvee that Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick was riding in when injured.
The brutal flip side is that minus arms, legs, fingers, ears, eyes, faces or mental capacity, an "Alive Day" also marks the date that a life changes unalterably, when basic human functions become torturous, often demeaning challenges and when the world defines you by your missing parts.

"When I went over there, this wasn't even an issue," Schick said recently, glancing at his battered body. "I was totally prepared to die. I wasn't prepared to come back learning how to walk, 46 surgeries, 23 blood transfusions. I went from being one of the elite, the best of the best, to not even being able to go to the bathroom by myself."

Equally unexpected was having to contend with the maddening complexities of insurance claims, veterans' hospitals and a federal health care bureaucracy that makes Schick yearn for the clarity of the battlefield.
A thick-chested former high school football noseguard whose swagger appears undiminished by the explosion, Schick said he knew early on that the U.S. Marine Corps was his calling. At 18, he presented himself to the local recruiter in Coppell, Texas, a Dallas suburb, and signed up.

"I want to be on the front," Schick told the recruiter.
By the summer of 2004, he was in Iraq's deadly al Anbar province leading a "React Team" charged with checking suspicious activity in the vicinity of an ammunition dump. Insurgents had discovered that burying improvised explosive devices in the roads was an effective guerrilla tactic against a better-armed and better-trained U.S. fighting force.

On Sept. 20, 32 days after he arrived, Schick was roused from sleep and ordered to deploy his team immediately. His friend David Woods hopped in the driver's seat of the lead Humvee. Schick ordered him to move over.
"I don't know why. It felt like I needed to drive. We were in a big hurry," Schick said. "Most of these guys drive like grannies, white-knuckling it waiting for an IED (improvised explosive device) to go off."

It was a fateful decision, but not his only one. He also decided to wear the protective goggles that always fogged up and the bothersome neck guard that he usually let flap in the wind. He gunned the Humvee's engine, driving with one hand and working the radio with the other.

He never heard the explosion.
An anti-tank mine had been buried in the soft sand. The driver's side tire triggered it. The bomb ripped open the floor of the vehicle, launched the steering wheel into Schick's chest and catapulted him to the side of the road.

His "Alive Day" had begun.
Face-down in the sand, he tried to pull himself up to check on his men. He couldn't move. His chest had collapsed, and he struggled to breathe. Shrapnel protruded from his face and neck guard. His limbs were a bloody, mangled mess.

"Schick! Schick!" he heard Woods calling out. Then he heard his friend toss aside his Marine bravado and cry out, "Jacob!"
"That freakin' crushed me. I know he thinks I'm dead," Schick said.

He spent the next hour looking for clues about how bad he was. He recalls lifting his arm and seeing daylight through the exposed muscle and bone. He saw his right foot "flopping around." Worse, though, was the reaction of the soldier on the helicopter ride to Al-Asad Airbase.

"This dude wouldn't even look at me," Schick said. "I think they were honestly just waiting, waiting for me to stop (living). I know I was close."
Through the end of August, 3,792 Americans were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 27,004 were wounded. Owing largely to better medical care, protective equipment and speedier evacuations, more soldiers are surviving their injuries than ever before. In World War II, the rate was 62 percent. In Vietnam, 73 percent. Today, it is 88 percent.

The higher rate of injuries, however, has put a strain on the military health care system.

In anticipation of his son's return, Schick's father, Woody Schick, checked out Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and was appalled. More than two years before the media would expose the poor care, mold and cockroaches, Schick's father told him, "You will not go to Walter Reed."
Instead, Schick was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he would spend the next 18 months undergoing surgery after surgery. The doctors amputated his right leg and fit him with a carbon-fiber prosthetic. He had it emblazoned with the Marine Corps seal. They removed skin from other parts of his body to patch his left arm and leg.


Throughout, Schick tried to maintain a brave demeanor. He refused to accept his Purple Heart until the rest of his comrades returned from combat. In an Internet posting, he taunted the Iraqi insurgents, calling them "cowards."
The facade crumbled the day he fell out of his wheelchair. He had momentarily forgotten he didn't have a right leg.

"I held his head in my lap, and he cried for 45 minutes," said his mother, Debby. "I said, 'Let it out. Let it out."

Thom Wilborn of the Disabled Americans Veterans says the "signature injury" of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is emotional. Some 40 percent, he said, show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said he has ramped up mental health services since being appointed in 2005. He said every veteran who arrives at a VA facility is screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Still, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that four out of five veterans deemed to be at risk for PTSD were not referred for further evaluation or help and that the VA had spent only $1 out of every $3 it had budgeted for mental health services.

Schick views therapists warily and has put off counseling. His anger is never far from the surface. He has learned to shrug off the stares from children who think he is a robot or a pirate. It irks him, though, when adults do it.
"Ask me," he said. "Just ask me."

What makes him angriest, though, are the administrative hassles involved with his health care. Even getting officially designated "disabled" proved time-consuming as the VA faced a backlog of 650,000 claims.

"It took me two or three days to sign up for the Marine Corps," Schick said. "It took me a year and five months to get a compensation check. You do the math."

The VA is often touted for the quality of its medical care, but Schick loathes the thought of walking through the front doors.
"No matter what, we have to wait an hour and a half, guaranteed," he said. "Then you see these doctors who are 190 years old, and you have to repeat everything you say."

The VA's Nicholson defended the system, saying it is doing "a world-class job" treating more than 1 million patients a week.

"The American people can be proud of the job we are doing," he said.

Dealing with veterans' health insurance was another unexpected obstacle Schick has encountered. Not long ago, he was treated at West Jefferson Medical Center for a tear to a skin graft on his left leg. The bill was $16,000. TRICARE, the insurance program, took so long to pay that it showed up as a debt on his credit report.

Literally adding insult to injury, Schick said his medical status will be reviewed by the military every five years.

"I guess they want to see if my leg grew back," he said.

So...What exactly are we supposed to be debating?

That is a sad story & it's awful what our gov't has done to some of our troops.
Are we sure want gov't sponsored national health insurance? I mean, if gov't won't even take care of our wounded military....

Originally Posted by Migi e!

That is a sad story & it's awful what our gov't has done to some of our troops.
Are we sure want gov't sponsored national health insurance? I mean, if gov't won't even take care of our wounded military....

This is a direct result of republican involvement. I know I served 22+ years in the USMC. Repubs cut entitlements, benefits and care for the troops and spend more on defense contractors. The result is troops that are under cared for. Carter and Clinton incresed healthcare benefits for troops and vets. Bush cut those benefits and is in the process of making more slashes.

Originally Posted by mykcob4

This is a direct result of republican involvement. I know I served 22+ years in the USMC. Repubs cut entitlements, benefits and care for the troops and spend more on defense contractors. The result is troops that are under cared for. Carter and Clinton incresed healthcare benefits for troops and vets. Bush cut those benefits and is in the process of making more slashes.

More garbage?

Prove what you say, I seem to remember it being Clinton that cut spending on the military. Give me PROOF.

Originally Posted by mykcob4

This is a direct result of republican involvement. I know I served 22+ years in the USMC. Repubs cut entitlements, benefits and care for the troops and spend more on defense contractors. The result is troops that are under cared for. Carter and Clinton incresed healthcare benefits for troops and vets. Bush cut those benefits and is in the process of making more slashes.

But you didn't know that a commander of a war operation had to be confirmed by the senate?
The lack of care afforded many of our vets is a result of lack of funding...guess who controls the purse strings....again, something you SHOULD know.

Originally Posted by Migi e!

But you didn't know that a commander of a war operation had to be confirmed by the senate?
The lack of care afforded many of our vets is a result of lack of funding...guess who controls the purse strings....again, something you SHOULD know.

Just because Clinton trimmed defense spending doesn't mean he cut the benefits for personnel.

Am I the only one who wonders if there's going to be a mega fucking law suit from these guys?

If people can sue MacDonalds for millions for giving them a hot cup of coffee, how long until one of the disffected wounded hit the governement for sending them to a war on trumped-up garbage and they lost their legs?

Keeping these guys sweet now would seem like a bargain later, methinks...

His getting his first disability check after 17 months is the exception, not the rule. The rule is well over two years.

Another thing I'd like to clarify. Once that wounded Marine gets his first check and/or medical coverage under Tricare, the real fun has just begun. Each time he needs special services or he develops a new or worsening condition related to his service, he must file a claim which then will take an average of 166 days for a first response (denial letter usually) You forgot to cross a T or dot an F'in I or some such crap. Then the appeals process begins which in many cases could take FIVE years or more. Meanwhile he can get few or no answers regarding the status of the claim beyond (pending) There is NO ONE to get specific information from because it is the single most clusterfucked bureaucracy you've ever seen.
Joseph Heller couldn't have imagined the complications and (almost) laughable non answers this poor SOB will have to endure.
I had one vet say to me "What do you figure would have happened to me if I had neglected my duties like these people do?" We both knew the answer, but those kinds of rules only flow in one direction. What flows back is smelly and foul.
It's a national disgrace. Bushco never seems to run out of money for bombs and bullets and the DEMS keep right on writin' those checks to Halliburton but this is what the "heroes as they call them" face as a result of their honor not being returned.
And from personal experience, it seems that most of the folks who seem to truly care for wounded GI's are Volunteers from Vets groups or the Amer. Red Cross. etc.
Shame on this country for this treatment of our sons and daughter. And, screw those politicians who want to prolong this madness. I'll piss on their graves if I get the opportunity. Now I feel better.