Injured Troops Struggle to Get Health Care

Source: National Public Radio's "All Things Considered"

Injured Troops Struggle to Get Health Care

Listen to this story...(at link)

by Joseph Shapiro

All Things Considered, April 20, 2007 · When service members are forced to leave the military by war injuries or illness, they face a complex system for getting health and disability benefits. Sometimes, health care gets cut off when new veterans find they need it most. Some retired soldiers and their families say they are worried that the Pentagon won't spend enough money to give the injured the care they deserve.

'10 Percent Disabled'

Tim Ngo almost died in a grenade attack in Iraq. He sustained a serious head injury; surgeons had to cut out part of his skull. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., he learned to walk and talk again.

When he got back home to Minnesota, he wore a white plastic helmet to protect the thinned-out patches of his skull. People on the street snickered, so Ngo's mother took a black marker and wrote on the helmet: U.S. ARMY, BACK FROM IRAQ. On this much, everyone agrees.

But here is the part that is in dispute: The Army says Tim Ngo is only 10 percent disabled. "I was hoping I would get at least 50 or 60 or 70 percent," Ngo says. "But they said, 'Yeah, you're only going to get 10 percent'... And I was pretty outraged."

(more and audio at link)

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9710383

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And yet, the VA rated this brave guy as 100% Disabled! Yup, ANOTHER OUTRAGEOUS "Cost Cutting" scam by the DoD!

I don't know whether to scream or weep. Not just the pentagon's arcane and viciously inhumane cost-cutting measures, but also this:
"People on the street snickered" (at Ngo's helmet that protects his compromised skull)

What manner of creatures are we, anyway?

We have close to 150,000 "Independent Military Contractors" over in Iraq too, not just all those Army Regulars, National Guard, and Reservists, and more than half of them make as much in ONE MONTH as out actual Military Troopers make in a year.

<http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9720>

Why Graft Thrives in Postconflict Zones

By Mark Rice-Oxley
The Christian Science Monitor

Thursday 17 March 2005

A report issued Wednesday said Iraq could become 'the biggest corruption scandal in history.'

London - Five Polish peacekeepers are arrested for allegedly taking $90,000 worth of bribes in Iraq. Several Sri Lankan officials are suspended for mishandling tsunami aid. US audits show large financial discrepancies in Iraq. Reports of aid abuse taunt Indonesia.

Two of the world's biggest-ever reconstruction projects - Iraq and post-tsunami Asia - are facing major tests of credibility, as billions of dollars of aid and reconstruction money pour in.

And according to a major report released Wednesday by Transparency International (TI), an international organization that focuses on issues of corruption, the omens are not good.

From Iraq and Afghanistan to Cambodia and Bosnia, from the wrecked coasts of Asia to the kleptocratic carve-up in some African countries, crisis zones are proving to be fertile soil for corruption, the report argues....

(more at link)

for all to see.

:kick:

comes out on how this Administration honors the war hero's and supports our troops. Pigs. Shove those tax cuts for the rich.