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Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! January 7, 2009 Re: PTSD, Purple HeartsBy GreyhawkI was talking to a guy a few months ago about his pending disability claims. He was getting out of the military, mostly due to chronic back problems. He had injured himself during a four month tour in Iraq, initially (so I'm told - I wasn't with him) during a work out at the gym, later aggravated by carrying something heavy in the line of duty. He completed his full deployment though, but like many he never left the FOB, never fired a weapon, etc, etc. That wasn't his job. But in addition to his back pain, his VA counselor told him (or so he told me) that he'd get an additional disability rating boost for PTSD. "Everyone gets PTSD", he assured me - meaning the diagnosis, not the actual disorder. (And "everyone" meant everyone who'd been to Iraq or Afghanistan, at least.) The goal for many who are leaving service is to "score" as high as possible in the disability game. Higher scores equate to increased compensation, hiring preferences, tax breaks, and a host of other benefits designed to ensure that those who've been injured in the line of duty are not merely tossed out in the streets to fend for themselves for the rest of their lives. The individual I was talking to was hoping for a disability retirement instead of a separation, and the PTSD score added to the points for his back injury would be very helpful in reaching that goal. A PTSD "score" can be as low as 0 percent or as high as 100 percent. He was under the impression he'd been told - by a benefits counselor, not a health care professional - he would be getting a 10 percent rating because "everyone did". That might immediately qualify him for retirement instead of separation, and later on that ten percent boost might give him an edge over the next guy in applying for a government job. But throw a Purple Heart into the mix and you also (in many States) get free license plates for life, and other benefits. Hard to resist that, eh? Anyhow, here's the score card for mental disorders. General Rating Formula for Mental Disorders:And yes, those who are legitimately disabled get screwed by the system. Ain't life a bitch? Posted by Greyhawk / January 7, 2009 12:07 PM | Permalink 1 Comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
![]() Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com ![]() Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
the way the medical "get out of the military" card works is that the services [supposedly] compensate you for THE ONE condition that prevents you from continuing your service -- even if you have 10 things wrong with you. so EITHER the guy gets a disability award for PTSD OR for his back... not both (but there is talk of changing that).
when he gets into the VA system, they rate the disability based on all conditions (injuries & permanent illnesses) suffered in the service and that reduce civilian earnings capability - which is why the disability ratings between the services and the VA can be so disparate and sometimes why the service rating looks so much lower. That is not to say that the services did not/ do not artificially suppress disability ratings to shift expense to the VA... they did/do. However, a service record better show all the who, what, where, and when of the injury/illness AND and treatment for those conditions while in the service... People who later claim conditions and injuries will have to wait their claims until all the paperwork is submitted and proof of the claim is received (the single principle reason for the backlog and delay in claims processing at the VA!!)
THAT being said, a 10% service disability will NOT earn a medical retirement from the service commensurate with a payment for life, medical insurance for you & yours for life... you need 30% or greater for that.
and yes, the MedBoard reps at the bases tell the guys all the time, "don't worry about the low rating -- the VA will compensate you" and the VA reps (that whole seamless transition thing) at those bases tell them the same.
it really chuffs me that people who served 40 or more years ago and who never once -- EVER -- claimed PTSD, sought treatment or showed a symptom are now permitted to file such claims at the VA (and have the VA accommodate these Vets because of all the heat they have taken in the press and before publicity-whore infested congressional committees on the PTSD issue.) The standards of proof should be much higher to file such delayed claims. And before I get sullied, I know that there are some who actually do suffer 40+ years later -- but not in the numbers of 65+ year old veterans currently filing initial claims to supplement their poor retirement planning.