"Unless A Soldier Has A Personal Fortune ..."

by hilzoy

From the Army Times, via VetVoice:

"His lifelong dream of becoming a soldier had, in the end, come to this for Isaac Stevens: 28, penniless, in a wheelchair, fending off the sexual advances of another man in a homeless shelter.

Stevens’ descent from Army private first class in 3rd Infantry Division began in 2005 — not in battle, since he was never sent off to Iraq or Afghanistan, but with a headfirst fall over a wall on the obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. He suffered a head injury and spinal damage.

The injury alone didn’t put him in a homeless shelter. Instead, it was military bureaucracy — specifically, the way injured service members are discharged on just a fraction of their salary and then forced to wait six to nine months, and sometimes even more than a year, before their full disability payments begin to flow. (...)

Most permanently disabled veterans qualify for payments from Social Security and the military or Veterans Affairs. Those sums can amount to about two-thirds of their active-duty pay. But until those checks show up, most disabled veterans draw a reduced Army paycheck.

The amount depends on the soldier’s injuries, service time and other factors. But a typical veteran and his family who once lived on $3,400 a month might have to make do with $970 a month.

Unless a soldier has a personal fortune or was so severely injured as to require long-term inpatient care, that can be an extreme hardship."

$970 a month really isn't a lot for a family. And I don't really think we should count on our troops' having personal fortunes to tide them over until they start getting the benefits they're entitled to. Do you?

When I read this, I remembered an interview with Linda Bilmes, who co-wrote The Trillion-Dollar War with Joseph Stiglitz. She starts by describing what happens to a wounded vet on discharge, and then offers a really good proposal:

"When he is finally ready to discharged from the military, if he's discharged right away, he would then lose all the benefits that he has associated with being in the military, which includes pay, it includes medical care, it includes any kind of family benefits, and he would essentially have nothing. So what happens is that that veteran often is hanging in limbo (...) while they are effectively trying to get into the veterans' benefits compensation system.

Now, the burden as it's currently structured is entirely on that veteran to prove that all of the things that he says are wrong with him actually happened. So the presumption is that those things didn't happen, and the veteran has to gather all of the documentation, and all of the doctors' notices, and all of the hospital forms, and all of the things from all the different places, which can often take a very long time. And the system is not electronic, so you're talking about essentially a paper-based system. And for someone who comes out of a long tour of duty and an injury and often has some measure of post-traumatic stress disorder or at least mental disorientation, that's a very very tall order.

And it's completely unnecessary. Because what happens in Britain, for example, in New Zealand, in Australia, in Canada, is that the presumption is that the veteran is entitled to these benefits, and the government has to prove why not. Here in the US we have that sort of policy for taxes, for example. The IRS takes your tax form and then they just audit a small subset. They don't make you do all the paperwork, as it were, up front They accept your taxes and they assume that your taxes are honest and they audit only a subset. And what we have proposed is that we should do this for veterans. The presumption should be that what a veteran says is wrong, is wrong, on the basis of a medical examination when they exit. And a subset should be audited to weed out fraud."

Doing veterans' benefits the way we do taxes, with the presumption in favor of the veteran, the standard operating procedure being to accept veterans' claims, and the responsibility for weeding out fraud falling on government auditors, strikes me as an excellent idea. It might even save money, since we would need many fewer people to process claims. But even if it didn't, ensuring that vets get the benefits they're entitled to quickly would be worth it. We owe them, and we should not ask them to subsist on next to nothing for months or years while we process their claims when there's a better way of doing things.

Comments

[southpaw]

Hear hear.

This is made all the more frustrating by the overwhelming likelihood that the telecoms will get immunity before wounded soldiers even get a presumption in their favor for money on which to subsist.

[neuyawker]

I wish someone could get this story to the Obama campaign. I sent it to my Obama group but I doubt to much effect so if someone reading this knows how to help, I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. I've emailed it to Phillip Carter at IntelDump as well and now I'll be sending it to my NY Senators, Clinton and Schumer.

[now_what]

$970 a month really isn't a lot for a family.

It's not a lot for someone who works a full week, either, you know?

But what political points can be scored by caring about THOSE losers?

[Jesurgislac]

But the Republicans support the troops, so that's all right.

[SqueakyRat]

Guy joins Army. He's healthy enough to get in. Guy leaves Army. He's a wreck. And the Gov't makes him prove something happened to him in the Army? Kafka would love it.

[Ginger Yellow]

It never ceases to amaze me how badly we (and I include the UK in that term) treat veterans. The disconnect between the blanket "support the troops" rhetoric and groupthink on the one hand and the reality of life for veterans is staggering. Why is there no political cost to this state of affairs?

[SeanH]

Amen. Just in case there are any military folks with poor supervisors out there: You are entitled to copies of your medical records when separating. Go to the hospital, show orders, and get them no matter how healthy you are.

Also, while your serving any injury merits a doctor's visit. Yeah, he's just going to give you motrin, but years later you'll be damn glad it's in your records if you find out that little nothing injury turned out to be more serious.

[Hartmut]

"Support The Troops" is the US equivalent of the Eastern Bloc's "For the Peace". In the end it had become a joke for children to add "Or are you against the peace?" in any controversy.

[Jesurgislac]

Ginger Yellow: Why is there no political cost to this state of affairs?

For much the same reason as there is no cost to pro-life politicians voting against pro-child policies. Good support for veterans is expensive, but rhetorical flourishes about "supporting the troops" are cheap and sound well.

[cleek]

The disconnect between the blanket "support the troops" rhetoric and groupthink on the one hand and the reality of life for veterans is staggering

as i see it, "support the troops" really means "support the mission", where "the mission" really means "the GOP's approach to the war".

we didn't hear much about "supporting the troops" when Clinton was sending the military off to fight. rather, we heard a lot of grumbling from the GOP about "Clinton's war" and "no national interest" and "no exit strategy" and "the Balkan quagmire" and "for us to call this a victory... is a farce". they are perfectly happy to criticize the war, the leadership, the mission, the goal, as long as the CiC isn't a Republican.

it is pure demagoguery.

[Davebo]

Get it straight people.

Once you are injured and booted on a medical discharge, you are no longer a troop and therefore are not entitled to support.

If we can't deploy you, we could care less about you.

[Eric Martin]

Hilzoy,

I just wanted to thank you for continuing to write about these issues. It really is shameful how we treat our soldiers and veterans. We must do more.

[Incertus]

$970 a month really isn't a lot for a family.

It's not much for a single person in many parts of the country. You could easily be homeless on that much if you live in south Florida or in most of California.

[John Thullen]

This is all part and parcel of the American ethic.

At one time or another here, we have talked about the maddening ways of cell phone companies whose contractual small print is so deliberately small that canceling your plan becomes a exercise in contemplating violence.

We have spoken many times about negotiating one's way thru the health insurance system. Nuff said about that one.

It's fun to negotiate with the car dealership over an automotive lemon or with the homebuilder over that horizontal crack developing in your foundation, ain't it?

The mortgage "work-out" departments of banks and mortgage companies don't want to talk to you until you're several months in arrears, because a "customer" who doesn't have the telltale sheen of desperate perspiration on their brow is a "customer" who might think they have a leg up.

No, you've got to transform yourself into a hardass f---wad and walk into the bank and throw the deed and the keys to the house on the loan officer's desk, who in real life is probably a very nice person, as you are, but in the arrangement we are creating for the universe, you take each other out.

Now, of course, with our "efficient, productive" technologies, we are given the privilege of wending our way through a phone-tree to "resolve" all of these disputes with a wait at the end of it.

"Hello?", you bleat into the deaf ether.

You could hire an attorney to do the negotiating, but just hope the individual is not a political conservative who constantly bemoans the need for so many attorneys, having already staked out both sides of the street.

We, in our everyday lives, are smiling adversaries with a firm handshake. Be aware that once I have whatever it is you're giving me in whatever transaction (my lie versus your lie) is going on the moment, that I'm going to be very hard to get in touch with afterwards. I have people to deal with you. There are rules, ya know. Guess what they are, because I don't just give away magnifying glasses to my adversaries.

My narrowed eyes signify shrewdness. Yours signify squinting, depending on whose place of business we find ourselves.

We are motes jostling with sharp elbows and robotic phone messages in the harsh sunlight of effyouism.

Finally, though, we are creating a government that follows good business practices. You give your money or maybe leave a kidney as a bloodstain in Fallujah and good luck getting something back.

The transaction window is closed now, thank you.

They is not they. It is us.

Generally speaking, natch.

Jes is right. I'm not funny anymore.

[John Thullen]

"an exercise"

[Ginger Yellow]

as i see it, "support the troops" really means "support the mission", where "the mission" really means "the GOP's approach to the war".

In the US, sure, but we have a similar situation in the UK where there isn't quite the same partisan divide. Certainly Labour used to have a peacenik reputation what with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and all that, but the Tories haven't been able to use that as a political tool since the 80s. All of Britain's recent warmongering was done under a Labour government, as was its continued neglect of and screwing around with veterans. Support the troops means support the government, here, no matter which party.

[Jim]

"Guy joins Army. He's healthy enough to get in. Guy leaves Army. He's a wreck. And the Gov't makes him prove something happened to him in the Army? Kafka would love it."

No, the God-almighty taxpayers love it. it's called "fiscal repsonsibility, and Suzie Surbanite with her her SUV-load of little civilians who will never serve (any useful purpose to society) with that godammed yellow ribbon decal on the back, demands nothing less of her elected officials.

[Roger Moore]

"Guy joins Army. He's healthy enough to get in. Guy leaves Army. He's a wreck. And the Gov't makes him prove something happened to him in the Army? Kafka would love it."

Do remember that soldiers have lives outside the military. They can, and do, injure themselves in their spare time. The military doesn't want to pay for lifetime medical benefits for injuries that weren't sustained in the line of duty. In peacetime, the proportion of medical claims that were fraudulent was presumably a lot higher, and the total number of claims was much lower, so it made sense to scrutinize every claim for fraud. That doesn't excuse the government for failing to change the system with changing circumstances, but it at least shows that there were once sensible reasons for challenging soldiers' claims.

[steve]

Really no excuse for this stuff not being on computers. Even before discharge the records should go to the VA. The vet should not have to drag them around. The discharge should not be allowed to finalize until the VA signs off and has money in the pipeline.

Steve

[now_what]

$970 a month really isn't a lot for a family.

It's not much for a single person in many parts of the country. You could easily be homeless on that much if you live in south Florida or in most of California.

Um, no. In "most of California" you can rent a room for a few hundred dollars a month.

I am always amazed by the extent to which the working poor are ignored in this country. There are millions and millions of non-homeless people getting by on $1k a month or less in the greater "most of California" region, but for some reason no one visiting political discussion web sites catering mainly to lawyers and academics can believe they could even possibly exist.

WTF? Working class America exists, OK? Yes, even working class California exists.

[CLH]

Um, no, you can not even say "most of California" when talking about cost of living -- there are at least five different major economies in the state.

Of course the working poor and the working class exist -- their numbers are growing every day -- and many of them exist in a state of high anxiety, as there is no room for error on that ledge.

I think it's the worst kind of national spiritual corrosiveness that we don't insist the govt & the militaty & the VA behave honorably & professionally toward our soldiers -- and that every citizen doesn't demand it daily, publicy, and loudly.