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Between the lines
Sunday, Feb. 03 2008
“I want to speak directly to our men and women on the front lines. You have
done everything we’ve asked of you and more. Our nation is grateful for your
courage.”
So spoke President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech last week.
We don’t question his sincerity. But our nation — and especially Mr. Bush’s
administration — seems to have a funny way of showing its gratitude.
Item: The number of regular Army and National Guard troops who killed
themselves, or tried to, was up again last year. As many as 121 soldiers
committed suicide in 2007, a 20 percent increase over 2006. Since 2002, the
number who attempted or committed suicide has increased six-fold, from 350 to
about 2,100 last year.
The leading cause, military officials say, is failed personal relationships,
followed by legal and financial problems. Speaking of difficult personal
relationships, the Pentagon extended normal combat tours from 12 to 15 months
last year.
Item: Army officials at Fort Drum in upstate New York last year instructed
Veterans Administration representatives not to help injured soldiers fill out
disability paperwork, National Public Radio reported last week. The paperwork
is crucial to get disability payments and qualify for continued care.
Army policy allows the help. But members of a special Army investigative “Tiger
Team” that visited Fort Drum last year apparently decided it was inappropriate.
They asked administrators at the VA’s regional office in Buffalo to stop the
practice.
In 2006, NPR reported that soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder at Fort
Carson, Colo., were being forced out of the military, shunned or discouraged
from getting care.
Item: Nine months after VA Secretary Jim Nicholson promised to set up new
traumatic brain injury screenings for combat veterans, the VA is having trouble
working out the kinks. Officials still are trying to decide if the tests are
reliable. Meanwhile, thousands of Iraq war veterans may have received
inadequate care because doctors failed to notify them they’d tested positive.
Item: About one in every six soldiers or Marines returning from Iraq has
suffered at least one concussion, often from roadside blasts, according to a
large-scale study paid for by the Army and published last week the New England
Journal of Medicine. Those soldiers are at increased risk for post-traumatic
stress disorder.
Soldiers involved in the study had been home from Iraq for three to four
months. Those who’d had concussions were more likely to report lingering
symptoms such as headache, poor sleep and balance problems.
In his speech last week, Mr. Bush said “we must keep faith with all those who
have risked life and limb so that we might live in freedom and peace.” He has
said something similar in each State of the Union speech since he ordered the
Iraq invasion in 2003. But there is an obvious disconnect between his words
and his actions.
Somewhere between the well-crafted lines of Mr. Bush’s speech and the blurred
front lines of wars he started in Iraq and Afghanistan lie thousands of injured
veterans who still aren’t getting the care they need or the benefits they have
been promised. Mr. Bush has 11 months to make good on his promise. Congress
should help him. Americans should insist on it.
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