diamond geezer
Mar 31, 2004, 02:19 PM
link (http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,SS_032504_Pentagon,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl)
By David Goldstein, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Stars and Stripes European Edition
WASHINGTON — To meet the demand for troops in Iraq, the military has been deploying some National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who aren't fit for combat.
More than a dozen members of the Guard and reserves told Knight Ridder they were shipped off to battle with little attention paid to their medical histories.
Those histories included ailments such as asthma, diabetes, recent surgery and hearing loss. Once in Iraq, the soldiers faced severe conditions that aggravated their medical problems, and the medical care available to them was limited.
David Lloyd, a 44-year-old mechanic with the Tennessee National Guard, died of a heart attack in Iraq last August. His wife, Pamela Lloyd, said her husband didn't know he'd had a problem, but his autopsy showed three blockages in his coronary arteries.
"He should have never been deployed," she said. "He was supposed to have been given a thorough physical. He had none. The only thing he had was the shots."
"They funneled us through the medical part: boom, boom, boom," said Michael Scott, an Iowa National Guardsman who had a herniated disc. "They let it be known they weren't real interested in hearing about stuff. `No, you're fine right now.'"
A memo from the European Regional Medical Command in Germany, where many injured soldiers were sent, criticized the pre-deployment medical screening and said soldiers who were unfit for Iraq were having to be sent home. Deploying them was a risk to their health and an added cost for the military, it said.
The memo contained the concerns of Col. Holly Doyne, a physician based there at the time. Doyne has been deployed to Kuwait and couldn't be reached for this article. Another Army medical officer, who didn't want his name used, confirmed that Doyne's memo was distributed to various stateside medical officials and commanders.
Michael Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official, acknowledged that some medically unqualified troops have been sent to Iraq but said "the percentages are extremely small." He said the Pentagon was taking steps to improve medical screening.
How many soldiers are unfit is unclear. Each soldier who spoke with Knight Ridder said he or she knew of others who — like themselves — were sent to Iraq despite health problems ranging from allergies requiring refrigerated medications to heart disease.
Several also said many soldiers weren't given physicals but only were asked a few cursory questions about their health by the medical screeners.
Gerry Mosley, a retired first sergeant with a reserve unit from Mississippi, said the practice of sending medically unqualified troops was widespread in the Guard and reserves. "It wasn't about healthy troops," he said in an interview. "It was about the number of troops."
"Soldiers with medical conditions that would be adversely affected by deployment were `rubber-stamped' as fit for duty," Mosley says in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing next week on military health care. "Medical profiles were ignored."
All the soldiers interviewed by Knight Ridder said their units and the medical officers who screened them, either after they were activated or at their mobilization sites, were aware of their medical conditions.
The problem was worrisome enough to trigger concerns last April at the European Regional Medical Command.
Doyne's memo said pre-deployment screening was "clearing individuals for movement to the combat zone without knowledge of the medical system limitation in the combat theater. ... OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) is NOT peacekeeping. It is combat. The medical support is austere."
It said the problem was a "KEY medical issue" and went on to say, "Frankly, we are burning out a lot of time and effort on shipping back folks who never should have come in the first place. Also runs a high risk of damaging folks."
The memo added: "Current practice of taking the theory of `if they are on duty they are OK' is not working. Nor is the assumption that if they have been found fit for duty by a medical board in the past they are fit."
By David Goldstein, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Stars and Stripes European Edition
WASHINGTON — To meet the demand for troops in Iraq, the military has been deploying some National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who aren't fit for combat.
More than a dozen members of the Guard and reserves told Knight Ridder they were shipped off to battle with little attention paid to their medical histories.
Those histories included ailments such as asthma, diabetes, recent surgery and hearing loss. Once in Iraq, the soldiers faced severe conditions that aggravated their medical problems, and the medical care available to them was limited.
David Lloyd, a 44-year-old mechanic with the Tennessee National Guard, died of a heart attack in Iraq last August. His wife, Pamela Lloyd, said her husband didn't know he'd had a problem, but his autopsy showed three blockages in his coronary arteries.
"He should have never been deployed," she said. "He was supposed to have been given a thorough physical. He had none. The only thing he had was the shots."
"They funneled us through the medical part: boom, boom, boom," said Michael Scott, an Iowa National Guardsman who had a herniated disc. "They let it be known they weren't real interested in hearing about stuff. `No, you're fine right now.'"
A memo from the European Regional Medical Command in Germany, where many injured soldiers were sent, criticized the pre-deployment medical screening and said soldiers who were unfit for Iraq were having to be sent home. Deploying them was a risk to their health and an added cost for the military, it said.
The memo contained the concerns of Col. Holly Doyne, a physician based there at the time. Doyne has been deployed to Kuwait and couldn't be reached for this article. Another Army medical officer, who didn't want his name used, confirmed that Doyne's memo was distributed to various stateside medical officials and commanders.
Michael Kilpatrick, a top Pentagon health official, acknowledged that some medically unqualified troops have been sent to Iraq but said "the percentages are extremely small." He said the Pentagon was taking steps to improve medical screening.
How many soldiers are unfit is unclear. Each soldier who spoke with Knight Ridder said he or she knew of others who — like themselves — were sent to Iraq despite health problems ranging from allergies requiring refrigerated medications to heart disease.
Several also said many soldiers weren't given physicals but only were asked a few cursory questions about their health by the medical screeners.
Gerry Mosley, a retired first sergeant with a reserve unit from Mississippi, said the practice of sending medically unqualified troops was widespread in the Guard and reserves. "It wasn't about healthy troops," he said in an interview. "It was about the number of troops."
"Soldiers with medical conditions that would be adversely affected by deployment were `rubber-stamped' as fit for duty," Mosley says in testimony prepared for a congressional hearing next week on military health care. "Medical profiles were ignored."
All the soldiers interviewed by Knight Ridder said their units and the medical officers who screened them, either after they were activated or at their mobilization sites, were aware of their medical conditions.
The problem was worrisome enough to trigger concerns last April at the European Regional Medical Command.
Doyne's memo said pre-deployment screening was "clearing individuals for movement to the combat zone without knowledge of the medical system limitation in the combat theater. ... OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) is NOT peacekeeping. It is combat. The medical support is austere."
It said the problem was a "KEY medical issue" and went on to say, "Frankly, we are burning out a lot of time and effort on shipping back folks who never should have come in the first place. Also runs a high risk of damaging folks."
The memo added: "Current practice of taking the theory of `if they are on duty they are OK' is not working. Nor is the assumption that if they have been found fit for duty by a medical board in the past they are fit."
