Ethos

I am an angry American Soldier

Ethos

When I arrived at my duty station I went to a replacement battalion for a couple of weeks before I went to my unit. The NCOs’ at the Replacement battalion said I wasn't a CAT-4 and that I would have to wait until I went to my unit to get further medical treatment. Unfortunately my unit was in California for training. When I got to my unit they told me I'd have to wait until the Unit's PA got back from training. A month later they came back and I tried numerous times to see a doctor. Every time I went to the AID station I was met with some excuse as to why they couldn’t help me. The excuses ranged from: acute care only, the PA's not in, the PA's not taking anymore patients for the day, to come back tomorrow. Eventually I gave up, and decided to suck it up for a while. About six months later I was in a lot of pain again. By this time My physical performance was poor. I couldn't keep up on runs. I would fall behind on ruck marches. So, I was given remedial PT which consisted of more running and more ruck marches. I had tried to explain to my NCOs’ that My range of motion was dissipating, and I had pain in my hip. Yet, the more I complained the more PT I received as punishment. Though the pain had never gone away now it was back to the crippling form I had experienced in basic training. After a week of fighting with the medics at the AID station I finally was given an appointment with CPT. S at the medical center. He examined me and said I needed a bone scan. A week later I received the bone scan and the following Monday he called me into his office. He told me that I had a stress fracture in my femoral neck, bilateral shin splints and a stress fracture in my left foot. I thought coming back to my company with the new information would put an end the constant mockery. I was mistaken. The doctor put me on crutches and set up an appointment with the Physical Therapist.
Capt. R was my doctor for the next six or seven months. Every time I went in to see her she would ask me where the pain level was, write me a new profile and send me on my way, also sending me for a bone scan every once in a while.
She also allowed me to go to vehicle training shortly after I was put on crutches which were impossible to use while training. I told her of the difficulty and she told me to do the best I could under the circumstances, which meant break your profile, but don't say I said so. Also, she sent me to BTA where it was extremely difficult to get around due to the terrain and it caused my left hip to start hurting. I was put on Ammo detail while on crutches, which was not possible. Though one of my NCOs’ seemed to think it was and called me some harsh names to try to motivate me to break my profile. It worked, I threw my crutches and I was tempted to punch him.
I had to sit and think about what I wanted at that moment. Did I want to just get out with a dishonorable or suck it up, and drive on. I went with suck it up. Though my tolerance for the constant tagging had been worn thin.
Shortly before NTC Capt. R took me off the crutches and put me back to full duty. by this time I had been on crutches for almost 7 months. You can only imagine the harassment I endured during that time. She didn't order another bone scan, and it had been a couple of months since the last one. Later we would find out that the stress fracture had never healed. The pain in my hip never completely went away and near the end of NTC the pain was right back to where it was before.
When I got back to garrison I tried to contact Capt. R and was unable to raise her. Apparently her office had moved and she failed to inform the AID station. Then I spent the next couple of weeks fighting with the AID station again, trying to get a doctor to see me. Finally Capt. S saw me after I refused to leave the AID station without seeing him. He put me in for an MRI.( later I would find out by researching my medical records that a doctor at the hospital had suggested I get an MRI 6 months earlier). It took two weeks for the MRI appointment to come up. Between the MRI and seeing Capt. S I had to do Soldier readiness program where they determine your deploy ability status and give you all of your shots. The SRP doctor wouldn’t clear me until I had the MRI, which ticked off my NCOs‘. When I got the MRI they scheduled another appointment with a PA, which took another two weeks. He said I was deployable. When I took my results to the SRP doctor he said I need a report from an Orthopedic doctor not a PA. So they scheduled another appointment, which took another week. By this time a month and a half had gone by and I was only two weeks away from deployment. That same day I went to see Capt. S, but he wasn’t at the AID station that day, so they had a Major look at my results, and he said I was okay, though he also said he didn’t know anything about joints. The orthopedic doctor a few days later said They needed to reconsider my deploy ability status and I took that recommendation to the SRP doctor who said he’s right, and stamped my packet with a non-deployable status. Two days later I was on a jet headed for Kuwait. In Kuwait I went to a navy doctor because our AID station wasn’t up and running yet. The navy doctor said I Probably need surgery but I needed to see an Orthopedic doctor to determine that. In the mean time my medic tried to get Capt. S to see me, but he refused. He looked at me and said you’re here now and walked away. When I saw the orthopedic doctor he said I needed surgery and assured me that he would send a report to my CSM command sergeant major. The medic and I skipped that process and went strait to CSM P who told me the only reason I’m still injured is because I’m fat and Capt. R took me off the crutches too soon.
At this point My family had started to get involved. Senator McCain and Senator Levins had both sent letters of inquiry, which CSM P had laughed at and told me it was a waist of time to even answer them.

This of course pissed me off to no end. I had spent the past two years trying to get adequate medical attention and finally when I was getting it my CSM tells me they are wrong, and gives me his own interpretation of what the MRI print out means, which was completely wrong according to every doctor I had seen up to that point. A couple of days later they had me breaking my profile waiting to go to Baghdad. I was in extreme pain once again, angry, depressed, confused, and a number of other things. I said I was going to end up in the brig. A battle buddy asked why and I said the pain is going to drive me to kill someone. An NCO overheard the conversation and took me off to the side telling me, saying things like that would get me in a lot of trouble. He calmed me down and we flew to Baghdad.
After we flew to Baghdad we went to FOB Taji where I was a self referral to mental health. Then I saw Capt. R the physical therapist again. She surprisingly said yes it does need surgery, and sent up a request. Capt. R had also said she couldn't do anything for FAI a degenerative hip condition. I took this new information to Capt. S who said, no you must not have heard her right. I know what she said, and it turns out she was right.
Two weeks went by and I hadn’t heard anything about getting an Ortho appt. I went back to Capt. R. She asked why I was still there? I told her what the PA had said and she was surprised. She hadn't even talked to him, and for him to speak for her was for lack of a better word confusing.
I decided That the doctors alone weren't helping so I got the Chaplain involved. He assured me he would arrange a meeting between myself all the doctors and CSM P.
A few more weeks went by, and a few more inquiries came in. CSM P. requested my presence in his office. He sat me down and told me I was lying to everyone and that I needed to come clean. Yet the fact of the matter was, he was lying. In his answers to the Kuwait inquiries he had added two false statements. He said my condition was getting better, when it was getting worse, and he said I was receiving Physical therapy, Though the physical therapist had said physical therapy would make my condition worse. Thankfully Senator Levins office had contacted me via E-mail and verified this information.
All I wanted was an Ortho doctor to look at my medical records and look at me and tell me what was wrong with my hip.
A few more weeks went by. I went back to the Chaplain, and he said he had good news. He said he had talked to all the doctors and CSM P, and they said I would be okay there was nothing to worry about my hip was fine. That didn't sound right to me because of what the physical therapist had said so I went back to her to confirm the information. She was appalled that Those words had been put in her mouth, and she told me to go back to my place of duty and she would try to find out what was going on.
A message from God arrived on CSM P's doorstep earlier that day in the form of 4 more inquiries. Though two of them were not of the type even I had expected. The Inquiries were from President Bush and the Vice President. When I got wind of this I was excited to say the least. If only to deflate me my First Sergeant called me into his office to sign a negative counseling statement for the poor choice of words that had come out of my mouth in Kuwait. He also informed me I would be getting and article 15 read to me the next day. I don't know if it was their answer to the inquiries or if that had been in the workings all along, but it seemed suspicious considering the circumstances.
Before I was supposed to be issued the article 15 I was called into the Battalion commanders office for a meeting. He told me I was wrong, and I needed to stop lying to people, sounds familiar doesn't it. The meeting lasted a while. I sat and listened to the Daddy speech, and at the end The commander told me we were going to call my family and tell them the truth. I agreed to tell them what I saw fit to tell them. He wanted me to tell them I was okay and I was lying to them, that I wasn't in any pain, and they were treating just fine. That wasn't what I was going to tell them. Later that day when I went to CSM P's office to pick up my article 15 he had already started on some other soldiers. I knocked. He came to the door and asked what I was doing there. I told him, for the article 15, and he said it has been lifted and to get out of his face.
A few days went by and I was called back to the commanders office to make that courtesy call to my family. We sat down for a nice chat. He told me to explain to them what was really going on and I told them everything, which didn't seem to surprise the commander at all. When I was done he said we are sending your soldier to Germany where he will be examined by doctors, and if they determine that he is in need of further medical treatment he will be sent back to the states for the appropriate medical procedures.
To make a very long story short. in Germany they said you need surgery and I was off to the states. When I arrived I went to a new unit called the WTB it's a new medical program to help soldiers with medical problems.
I started seeing doctors. all kinds of doctors. Even though I was in the states I was still fighting with these people. The doctors were telling me im fine. all it is, is a stress fracture. we'll let it heal and send you back to Iraq. But, the funny thing was these weren’t hip specialist these war PA's, glorified nurses. I had a friend on the inside so to speak. She hacked into the hospital computers and scheduled an appointment with the hip surgeon. A few weeks later I was scheduled for surgery.
One thing I left out. When I left Iraq for Germany I was sent off with my medical records. Unfortunately some of them didn't make it into my file. where they are I may never know, but thanks to a number of entities I got the much needed surgery.
Now I have almost full range of motion. I don't walk like the hunchback of Notre dame anymore, and things are going well. Though It took 2 and a half years to get to this point.
The reason I wrote this is to show how screwed up the system is and for some possible suggestions on how it could be fixed. thank you for reading.

~~~~~~there is still more to come~~~~~~