Blame the victim

[unixronin]

The Charleston Gazette, of Charleston, West Virginia reports on West Point graduate 1st Lt. William Rebrook, who was forced to take a medical discharge after being wounded in Iraq last year ... and was forced to pay for his body armor because no-one recorded that medics cut it off his body and burned it as a biohazard.

Rebrook was standing in the turret of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle when the roadside bomb exploded Jan. 11, 2005.  The explosion fractured his arm and severed an artery.  A Black Hawk helicopter airlifted him to a combat support hospital in Baghdad.

He was later flown to a hospital in Germany for surgery, then on to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C., for more surgeries.  Doctors operated on his arm seven times in all.

But Rebrook’s right arm never recovered completely.  He still has range of motion problems.  He still has pain when he turns over to sleep at night.

Even with the injury, Rebrook said he didn’t want to leave the Army.  He said the “medical separation” discharge was the Army’s decision, not his.

So after eight months at Fort Hood, he gathered up his gear and started the “long process” to leave the Army for good.

Things went smoothly until officers asked him for his “OTV,” his “outer tactical vest,” or body armor, which was missing.  A battalion supply officer had failed to document the loss of the vest in Iraq.

“They said that I owed them $700,” Rebrook said.  “It was like ‘thank you for your service, now here’s the bill for $700.’  I had to pay for it if I wanted to get on with my life.”

Rebrook says other troops have also been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.

“It’s a combat loss,” he said.  “It shouldn’t be a cost passed on to the soldier.  If a soldier’s stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

You know, it must really suck to be the driver of an M1A2 Abrams or an M2 Bradley lost in combat.  Those things are expensive.

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I can see why they want to make soldiers responsible for the equipment issued to them, but combat injuries should kick them over into a far less stringent accounting of their gear when they get home...

No brain.

-Ogre

[lonewolf545.livejournal.com]

Which is why it's interesting that he, according the public affairs officer at the 1st Cavalry division, is the first soldier to have to do so, despite at least 21 similar cases. And he has since been informed that he will be reimbursed for the body armor.

There's a process. Failure to follow the defined process is NOT an excuse. Whining to the media is a symptom that West Point obviously failed to imbue him with the appropriate sense of how to accomplish the mission. I'm tempted to drop an email to one of his fellow 2004 graduates to get their impression of him (brother's best friend, also in the 101st, is a graduate of the Hudson River School for Troubled Youth as well). In other news, my brother should be back on patrol in a week or so from his injuries a few weeks ago.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

And he has since been informed that he will be reimbursed for the body armor.

Well, that's a good thing.

In other news, my brother should be back on patrol in a week or so from his injuries a few weeks ago.

That's even better news.