From UPI, 10/17/03:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r

Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

By Mark Benjamin
UPI Investigations Editor

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) --

Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served
in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they
wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so
substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe
the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their
ailments.

One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are
available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have
done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class
Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company.
Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation
Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War.

"Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like
a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to
get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his
abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20
percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family
in Mississippi.

"They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still
trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart --
home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return
from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army
Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy
and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to
treat their wounds or illnesses.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls
"medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are
and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an
appointment without seeing a doctor.

Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis
or proper treatment.

The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting
better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army
Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.

"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and
Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin
ailment.

A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public
affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not
returned.

Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in
medical hold were deployed to Iraq.

Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like
heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops.

They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the
injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior
to military service.

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of
rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without
bathrooms or air conditioning.

They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and
humidity.

Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy
dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions
between otherwise open toilets for privacy.

A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall.

The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows
have no screens.

Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have
to buy their own toilet paper.

They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick
people.

"I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to
Iraq and asked that his name not be used.

That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a
sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten
steadily worse.

He shakes uncontrollably.

He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a
pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax
shots the Army gave him.

"They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly," he
said.

"I did not have a problem until I got those shots."

First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with
the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from
the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles.

Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in
17 minutes at 48 years old.

But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of
breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus.

He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him.

Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there.

Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself
looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder
block barracks.

He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor
appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11.

He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the
Army Reserves.

"Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said.

Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to
see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

"The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and
they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six
weeks ago with a serious back injury.

He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he
said.

Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has
had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in
Iraq.

"There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't
perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said.

"Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said,
gesturing to the bunks.

"There are people here who got back in April but did not get their
surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families."

The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of
the backbone of the military.

"Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror,"
Bush said.

"And you're making your state and your country proud."

___________________________________________________

DAMN IT! When the hell is all this ***** gonna end?

Harry

From UPI, 10/17/03:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r

Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

By Mark Benjamin
UPI Investigations Editor

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) --

Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served
in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they
wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so
substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe
the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their
ailments.

One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are
available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have
done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class
Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company.
Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation
Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War.

"Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like
a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to
get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his
abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20
percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family
in Mississippi.

"They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still
trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart --
home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return
from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army
Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy
and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to
treat their wounds or illnesses.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls
"medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are
and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an
appointment without seeing a doctor.

Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis
or proper treatment.

The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting
better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army
Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.

"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and
Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom,
during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin
ailment.

A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public
affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not
returned.

Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in
medical hold were deployed to Iraq.

Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like
heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops.

They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the
injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior
to military service.

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of
rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without
bathrooms or air conditioning.

They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and
humidity.

Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy
dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions
between otherwise open toilets for privacy.

A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall.

The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows
have no screens.

Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have
to buy their own toilet paper.

They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick
people.

"I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to
Iraq and asked that his name not be used.

That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a
sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten
steadily worse.

He shakes uncontrollably.

He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a
pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax
shots the Army gave him.

"They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly," he
said.

"I did not have a problem until I got those shots."

First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with
the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from
the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles.

Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in
17 minutes at 48 years old.

But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of
breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus.

He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him.

Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there.

Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself
looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder
block barracks.

He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor
appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11.

He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the
Army Reserves.

"Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said.

Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to
see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

"The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and
they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six
weeks ago with a serious back injury.

He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he
said.

Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has
had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in
Iraq.

"There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't
perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said.

"Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said,
gesturing to the bunks.

"There are people here who got back in April but did not get their
surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families."

The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of
the backbone of the military.

"Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror,"
Bush said.

"And you're making your state and your country proud."

___________________________________________________

DAMN IT! When the hell is all this ***** gonna end?

Harry