Does the Army take care soldiers they injured?

Retiring is difficult enough. Leaving behind the life you learned to love and the comrades with whom you walked the walk is difficult. Indeed, there’s a saying among retired service personnel, “when you’re in you’re the best, when you’re gone you’re a pest.” Retirement and separation are even more difficult when the circumstances are forced on you by injury.

Injury is not a choice; injury is not a date you look forward to; injury isn’t retirement. A debilitating injury necessitating your medical retirement from your service, your comrades and your life is an emotional roller coaster almost always ending in a train wreck. Everyone knows this - certainly, the US Army Command knows this.

The medical retirement system is a labyrinth of unintended consequences. It is a maze of dead-ends, each with a clerk seated at a desk whose sole function seems to be to pass the buck. For the Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman or Coastguardsman, who finally make it through the labyrinth and are granted a medical retirement the trauma doesn’t end. In many ways, the fight for recognition that the service injured you and forced your retirement is a hollow victory. It’s not what you wanted, it’s not what you enlisted for, it’s not how your dream was suppose to end. It is relief, sadness and uncertainty mixed together and churning within you. Moreover, surrounding this hollow victory is the ever present debilitating injury.

The good news is that you will get through it. Whatever drove you to enlist, to service, to excel will be what carries you through and into your new life. It would be, nice, however, if the Army was helpful.

What is wrong with the rear detachment of the 1st Armored Division? They must know how difficult these transitions are for their soldiers. Why is my daughter, a soldier in good standing who was injured by the Army’s actions, asking me for rent money? Why is the transition from soldier to “Command Sponsored Spouse” so difficult? Why would they place this extraordinary stress on her husband who is deployed to the field of battle? Or, her family who has worried every day for more than six years?

The Army was able to deploy her to Korea, Iraq and Germany. The Army was able to send her into harms way. She has fought our enemies and served our Country. Now, the Army ought to be able to manage the paperwork and ease the transition.

It’s more than just the paperwork - it is what all retired servicemembers know - “when you’re in you’re the best, when you’re gone, you’re a pest.”

The “Rear D” needs to get it’s shit together.