Bring It On!

Disability Doesn’t Stop Deployment

March 12th, 2007 | by Ken Grandlund |

The U.S. Army is apparently being guided by none other than the infamous Black Knight of Monty Python fame. That is, a recent report claims that soldiers previously classified as disabled are being reclassified and redeployed to Iraq despite their physical inabilities.

I can just hear the Black Knight now, as his arm is severed by King Arthur, proclaiming, “tis but a scratch!”

Or maybe this is just the latest example of how the Bush Administration has decided to ’support the troops.’

According to the article, soldiers whose disability is so bad as to prohibit them from even carrying the amount of weight that their body armor weighs are being sent back to Iraq anyhow, being told that they’ll be placed in ’safe jobs’ once in theater. Safe jobs? In Iraq? I didn’t know there were any safe jobs in Iraq.

One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. “My [health] is deteriorating,” she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. “My spine is separating. I can’t carry gear.” Her medical records include the note “unable to deploy overseas.” Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.

I can’t tell if this action by the Army is due to the need to produce enough troops to satisfy the Bush Surge Plan or a way to keep troops out of Walter Reed Medical Center (and thus eliminate the need to treat them at all) but it’s dispicable just the same.

Who really cares if troops end up dying because they can’t carry armor, run and dive to evade incoming fire, or put other soldier’s lives in danger due to their own injuries? Certainly not the Bush Administration or the Bush Pentagon. But then, according to the Black Knight theory of battle injuries, all injuries are “just a flesh wound.”

[tag]Army+deploy+injured+troops, Iraq, military, Black+Knight, Monty+Python+Military, Bush, Salon.com[/tag]

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