Colonel Dan Veterans Issue Digest

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1. America's hidden war dead, More than 770 civilians

<http://www.chicagot ribune.com/ news/nationworld /chi-0703260081m ar26,1,598442
1.story>
http://www.chicagot ribune.com/ news/nationworld /chi-0703260081m ar26,1,5984421
.story

America's hidden war dead

More than 770 civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives
supporting the military in Iraq, and some families are now speaking out

By Howard Witt, hwitt@tribune. com
Tribune senior correspondent

March 26, 2007

HOUSTON -- Like thousands of other Americans who have served in Iraq since
the U.S. intervention began four years ago, Walter Zbryski came home in a
coffin. Only his coffin was not draped in an American flag or accompanied by
a military honor guard.

Instead, the mangled body of the 56-year-old retired firefighter from New
York City was shipped back to his family in June 2004 in the bloodied
clothes in which he died, with half of his head blown away, according to
Zbryski's brother Richard.

"I viewed the body," Richard Zbryski said. "What really upset me was that he
was laying there floating in at least 6 inches of his own body fluids. They
didn't even clean him up for us."

Zbryski's death was not counted among the official tally of more than 3,200
American military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, nor was it noted
by the Defense Department in a news release. That's because Zbryski was not
a soldier--he was a truck driver working in the private army of hundreds of
thousands of contractors hired by the Pentagon to support the logistical
side of the massive American war effort in Iraq.

More than 770 civilian contractors working for American companies have died
in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began on March 20, 2003, according to an
obscure office inside the U.S. Department of Labor, which loosely tracks the
figures. If those deaths--of truck drivers and cooks, laundry workers and
security guards--are added to the military toll, the human cost of the U.S.
war effort in Iraq is nearly 25 percent higher.

Now the family members of some of those American workers killed and injured
in Iraq are raising their voices, complaining that the contributions of
their loved ones have been forgotten by the U.S. public. Some allege that
the workers were put in harm's way without adequate protection. Others
charge that their own financial and psychological hardships have been
ignored by the contracting companies that promised to help them.

"I think these deaths are glossed over and swept under the carpet," said
Hollie Hulett, whose husband, Stephen, 48, was killed in an ambush in Iraq
on April 9, 2004, while driving a truck for KBR, formerly Kellogg, Brown &
Root, a subsidiary of oil services giant Halliburton. "I don't think
anybody, including the Pentagon and the companies that hire these
contractors, want it to be known that it is that dangerous over there and
they are sending them out into a mess."

Critics of the war, and some members of Congress, have begun pressing the
Bush administration to disclose more details about the Pentagon's reliance
on private contractors to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense
Department officials conceded in congressional testimony last year that they
do not keep track of how many contractors are at work in Iraq and
Afghanistan or how many casualties they have suffered.

"We want to know how many contractors and subcontractors there are, the
total cost of the contracts, the number of dead and wounded contractors, "
said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has introduced a bill to require the
Bush administration to collect and publicize such information. "This is
basic information. . . . When you don't even count [the contractor deaths],
you mask the cost in life of this war."

The most common estimate of the number of contractors currently working for
U.S. firms in Iraq is 100,000, according to military analysts, but that
figure includes unknown proportions of Americans, Iraqis and citizens of
other countries.

Casualties understated?

The most recent statistic for deaths among those contractors is 770 as of
the end of 2006, according to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation
Division of the U.S. Labor Department, which computes the figures from
workers' compensation claims filed under the federal Defense Base Act.

But those figures, which also count 7,761 contract workers injured in Iraq,
appear to understate the actual number of casualties because they do not
include killings of off-duty workers. Nor do they specify the nationalities
of the dead and wounded.

What is more clear is that KBR, the Houston-based company that holds the
largest Pentagon services contract, has more than 50,000 employees and
subcontractors at work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait who are driving fuel
and supply trucks, cooking meals, delivering mail and generally supporting
the U.S. military in the region. So far, according to the company, 99 KBR
employees have been killed on the job, most of them in Iraq.

The war-zone jobs come with health and other benefits and are high-paying --
contract workers in Iraq can earn $80,000 or more, most of it tax-free--and
KBR has more than 500,000 applications from interested workers. But company
officials insist that they provide repeated and explicit warnings about the
dangers in Iraq to every job applicant during an extensive orientation
program in Houston.

When employees are injured or killed in Iraq, officials at Halliburton
headquarters say they are committed to helping the workers and their
families.

"The work KBR employees perform in Iraq is often done under harsh and
difficult conditions," Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in a written
reply to questions from the Tribune. "Therefore, KBR recognizes the
importance of helping its employees and their families during difficult
times and is committed to do so in any way possible."

But former KBR workers and their families, some of whom are suing KBR and
Halliburton over the deaths of their loved ones, say they got little help.

"It was like pulling teeth trying to find out from KBR what happened to
Steve," said Hulett, whose husband was among six KBR employees killed when
their convoy was ambushed along a route where fighting between Iraqi
insurgents and U.S. forces had been raging for several days. "Later on, I
asked KBR to continue paying my health insurance -- I couldn't afford the
COBRA for it, almost $800 per month. They refused. They wouldn't help."

Richard Zbryski, whose brother was a KBR truck driver, said company
officials "were going to dump my brother at the airport, and that was the
extent of them taking care of it"--until he said he contacted several New
York newspapers about the story. Soon afterward, Zbryski said, KBR agreed to
cover his brother's funeral costs.

Nightmares, flashbacks

Ray Stannard, a former KBR truck driver who was among 11 contractors wounded
in the same ambush in which Hulett was killed, said he still suffers
nightmares and flashbacks from that harrowing day and wonders if he might be
suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The first day I got back, I thought I was going to get help from KBR," said
Stannard, 48, who now drives long-haul trucks out of El Paso, Texas. "A lot
of us who survived that thing, we are all having nightmares. But they never
even called us to follow up. When I got ahold of one of the KBR secretaries
higher up, she said they had a lot of people who have gone through that,
you're not anything different than anyone else."

The former KBR workers and their families said they had encountered
criticism from skeptics who said the dead and injured workers ought to have
known the dangers they were facing and deserved no special sympathy.

That attitude offends Steven Schooner, a law professor at George Washington
University and a former military officer who is an expert on Pentagon
procurement and the use of private contractors to support U.S. military
operations.

"People think of the contractors, alive or dead, as profiteers, adventurers,
mercenaries or the like, whereas anyone in uniform who dies is a patriot and
a hero," Schooner said. "That's appalling. These are workers who are there
to enable the U.S. military to do its job. And when the going got tough,
they didn't go home."

----------

hwitt@tribune. com

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2. VA Report on Conditions at VA Hospitals

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:44 am (PST)

http://www.vawatchd og.org/07/ nf07/nfMAR07/ MARFILES/ VA%20Enviro% 20of%20Care% 2
0Report.pdf

Can scroll thru to find your VISN network & local Facilities

I.e one near me, Danville IL VAMC listed as Illiana on Pages 49 & 50

Question.... Many items listed on report indicate they will be corrected
Very soon? Who was looking out for these problems prior to the reports.
If they are so easily corrected... why did they happen in the first place..
Lack of routine preventative maintenance. ... Director's need to get out and
Walk around. Like many old public Bldgs, always a plan to tear down & build

A new one... No long term plan in place over past years to maintain the old
one.
Yet almost every year, VA & whitehouse has never asked for enough money,
congress
Always has to add some... VA & Whitehouse too busy trying to outsource to
civilan
Donors.. Uh I mean contractors.

Many old bldgs at Danville VA were unusable, taken out of service.. Now home
To Danville Jr College, all bright & fixed up, better shape than many
Current VA bldgs in use by VA hospital.

UPDATE: THE COMPLETE VA "ENVIRONMENT OF CARE"

REPORT -- Find out what problems VA inspectors

uncovered at your hospital or clinic.
Also on you tube, CBS report on Homeless veterans
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=FsTmBVav- r0

VA has beds for 14,000 homeless vets out of the 200,000 on the street
At the same time they are doing away with VA facilities all across the US,
Plus all the BRAC base closings.. Every base closing should devoute a bldg
or 2
For homeless/needy veterans.


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3. AZ State Veteran's Home, what went wrong at veteran home "I know n

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:18 am (PST)

Note: Each of you reading this need to call your State Rep & your
congressmen and ask them to
visit all State & Fed VA facilities in their areas... It is systematic, you
personally may have had
good experience at your facility.. spend more time next time you are
there... look around into
the corners of the facility from an inspector's view (s) ColonelDan

Families, staff share what went wrong at veteran home

2 officials dispute who knew what about neglect

Jodie Snyder and Chad Graham
The Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentra l.com/arizonarep ublic/news/ articles/ 0325veterans0325 .html
#
Mar. 25, 2007 12:00 AM

Veterans and family members remained outraged Saturday as new details
emerged over what went wrong at the only state-owned nursing home for
military veterans.

Arizona officials scrambled to gauge the depth of the problems at the
Arizona State Veteran Home, whose residents are mostly between the ages of
70 and 94.

During what was supposed to be a routine inspection last month, state
inspectors found such poor care at the long-term care facility in central
Phoenix that they demanded immediate corrections.

On Friday, The Arizona Republic obtained a 94-page report by the Arizona
Department of Health Services documenting cases of "substantial" patient
neglect. By the end of the day, Gov. Janet Napolitano ordered a full review.

The cases of neglect involved frail patients, some of whom were left
overnight in urine-soaked garments or with clothing burned from cigarettes.
Patients went hours without having their colostomy bags emptied and days
without their teeth being brushed, the report said.

"Here are the guys who went to war for us, and this is what they get?" asked
Phoenix resident Ann Rhoades, whose father arrived at the home in early
2005.

She said her family confronted staff about the lack of care and took turns
feeding him and putting him to bed at night because the facility was so
short-staffed.

On Saturday, Dennis Burke, Napolitano's chief of staff, and Beth Shermer, a
top adviser on health issues, went to the home to look through records.

The governor's spokeswoman, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, said Napolitano is also very
concerned about charges of nepotism involving Patrick Chorpenning, director
of the Arizona Department of Veterans' Services.

She would not comment about Chorpenning' s future. Already, five other
nursing-home employees, including the administrator and director of nursing,
have been fired or quit.

Catherine Corbin, the home's former administrator, one of those five
employees, said Saturday that some problems stemmed from the fact that
Chorpenning' s relatives worked at the nursing home. Other problems involved
staffing, she said.

Chorpenning, reached on Saturday, strongly disputed those claims, saying
Corbin never told him about conditions at the nursing home.

Corbin, a longtime nursing-home manager, was the home's administrator from
December 2005 to March 14, when she was fired by Chorpenning.

Having his relatives on the payroll led to a culture of indifference, Corbin
said.

One relative had a key position of director of nursing but had never worked
in a nursing home before, she said.

Corbin said she had resisted hiring him because of his lack of experience
but that Chorpenning told her he wanted someone with a fresh perspective and
a strong military background. It wasn't until months later, during the
health department inspection, that she learned about the tie between the two
men, Corbin said.

Health department inspectors came to the home and declared it an "immediate
jeopardy" to patients because they were being left unsupervised while they
smoked. One patient had holes burned in his clothing from unattended
cigarettes. The health department would not leave until nursing home
employees created policies to solve the problems. Inspectors and nursing
home employees worked into the night to fix it.

During that crisis, Corbin said she told the nursing director she feared the
fallout.

Corbin said he told her not to worry and that she remembers him adding,
"There's something you need to know: My mom is (Chorpenning' s) wife's
cousin. . . . I'm not going to lose my job, and you're not going to lose
yours either.' "

"I nearly fainted," Corbin said. She said she filed a letter of resignation
Feb. 20, saying that knowing Chorpenning' s relative worked for her
undermined her position. She said Chorpenning talked her out of resigning.

On Saturday, Chorpenning said the relative is his wife's second or third
cousin. Chorpenning said he met him only a couple of times before and that
he didn't influence Corbin to hire him.

"There's no conflict of interest. He's a relative by marriage. He's someone
I would not even know," he said.

Chorpenning' s wife also worked at the nursing home as a director of interior
design for the past five years. Her salary was not available Saturday.

She left that position after the health department inspectors' survey
because she had become a "lightning rod" for criticism from Corbin,
Chorpenning said.

Chorpenning, a Vietnam veteran who has been widely praised for his work at
the veterans agency, said he saw nothing wrong with his relatives working at
the home. His wife's position was created through the state Department of
Administration, and she reports to the veterans agency purchasing
department. She has no effect on patient care.

His son also worked at the home several years ago as an administrative
intern, Chorpenning said.

The problems went beyond Chorpenning' s relatives, Corbin said. The facility
didn't have enough staff at times, she said.

Sometimes, as many as 19 staffers would call in sick for the weekend shift,
and Corbin would scramble to fill their spots by trying to hire temporary or
registry nurses.

"(Chorpenning) didn't want registry in the building," she said.

Chorpenning said Saturday that he didn't want registry staff because they
aren't as familiar with the patients as regular staff members are. He said
he was not aware of any reports of staffing shortages until a separate
report conducted by Veterans Affairs in January.

Results of that survey were not available Saturday.

Chorpenning said the problems at the home aren't about lack of staff: They
are about staff not being responsive enough to answer call-light buttons and
managers not holding them accountable.

Chorpenning said he visited the facility weekly and didn't notice any
problems. He met with Corbin weekly and didn't hear about staffing problems.
Corbin disputes that, saying staffing issues, which are a concern with
practically all nursing homes, were a concern at the state veterans home
since she was hired in 2005.

Family members who contacted The Republic said staff responding to call
buttons was a long-standing issue.

"I remember walking in one day to see every light in my Dad's hallway 'on'
while five to six employees were enjoying cake around the nurses' station,"
Linda LaStrange of Mesa said in an e-mail.

Her father was a patient at the home last year.

He had terminal cancer and wanted to spend his final days with other
military men, she said.

Another time, she overhead two employees outside her father's door arguing
about whose turn it was to tend to him.

"This, I thought, is how they treat the very men and women who fought for
their country," she said.

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4. FW: How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits , Personality Disorder

Posted by: "Colonel Dan" colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net coloneldan1

Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:25 am (PST)

Strongly suggest veterans discharged with Personality Disorder, get a good
VSO and ask for discharge upgrade


_____

From: Johnny Waltz [mailto:j.waltz@iraqwarvete rans.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:53 AM
To: Undisclosed- Recipient: ;
Subject: How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

It is a shame that our soldiers are worth more in money than the brave
American souls that they are. Please read this article and give me your
opinion..
This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenatio n.com/doc/ 20070409/ kors
_____

How Specialist Town Lost His Benefits

by JOSHUA KORS

[from the April 9, 2007 issue]

Jon Town has spent the last few years fighting two battles, one against his
body, the other against the US Army. Both began in October 2004 in Ramadi,
Iraq. He was standing in the doorway of his battalion's headquarters when a
107-millimeter rocket struck two feet above his head. The impact punched a
piano-sized hole in the concrete facade, sparked a huge fireball and tossed
the 25-year-old Army specialist to the floor, where he lay blacked out among
the rubble.

"The next thing I remember is waking up on the ground." Men from his unit
had gathered around his body and were screaming his name. "They started
shaking me. But I was numb all over," he says. "And it's weird because...
because for a few minutes you feel like you're not really there. I could see
them, but I couldn't hear them. I couldn't hear anything. I started shaking
because I thought I was dead."

Eventually the rocket shrapnel was removed from Town's neck and his ears
stopped leaking blood. But his hearing never really recovered, and in many
ways, neither has his life. A soldier honored twelve times during his seven
years in uniform, Town has spent the last three struggling with deafness,
memory failure and depression. By September 2006 he and the Army agreed he
was no longer combat-ready.

But instead of sending Town to a medical board and discharging him because
of his injuries, doctors at Fort Carson, Colorado, did something strange:
They claimed Town's wounds were actually caused by a "personality disorder."
Town was then booted from the Army and told that under a personality
disorder discharge, he would never receive disability or medical benefits.

Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in
which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a
personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The
conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military
community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans'
rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that
it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability
and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

The Fine Print

In the Army's separations manual it's called Regulation 635-200, Chapter
5-13: "Separation Because of Personality Disorder." It's an alluring choice
for a cash-strapped military because enacting it is quick and cheap. The
Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't have to provide medical care to
soldiers dismissed with personality disorder. That's because under Chapter
5-13, personality disorder is a pre-existing condition. The VA is only
required to treat wounds sustained during service.

Soldiers discharged under 5-13 can't collect disability pay either. To
receive those benefits, a soldier must be evaluated by a medical board,
which must confirm that he is wounded and that his wounds stem from combat.
The process takes several months, in contrast with a 5-13 discharge, which
can be wrapped up in a few days.

If a soldier dismissed under 5-13 hasn't served out his contract, he has to
give back a slice of his re-enlistment bonus as well. That amount is often
larger than the soldier's final paycheck. As a result, on the day of their
discharge, many injured vets learn that they owe the Army several thousand
dollars.

One military official says doctors at his base are doing more than
withholding this information from wounded soldiers; they're actually telling
them the opposite: that if they go along with a 5-13, they'll get to keep
their bonus and receive disability and medical benefits. The official, who
demanded anonymity, handles discharge papers at a prominent Army facility.
He says the soldiers he works with know they don't have a personality
disorder. "But the doctors are telling them, this will get you out quicker,
and the VA will take care of you. To stay out of Iraq, a soldier will take
that in a heartbeat. What they don't realize is, those things are lies. The
soldiers, they don't read the fine print," he says. "They don't know to ask
for a med board. They're taking the word of the doctors. Then they sit down
with me and find out what a 5-13 really means--they' re shocked."

Russell Terry, founder of the Iraq War Veterans Organization (IWVO), says
he's watched this scenario play itself out many times. For more than a year,
his veterans' rights group has been receiving calls from distraught soldiers
discharged under Chapter 5-13. Most, he says, say their military doctors
pushed the personality disorder diagnosis, strained to prove that their
problems existed before their service in Iraq and refused to acknowledge
evidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury and
physical traumas, which would allow them to collect disability and medical
benefits.

"These soldiers are coming home from Iraq with all kinds of problems," Terry
says. "They go to the VA for treatment, and they're turned away. They're
told, 'No, you have a pre-existing condition, something from childhood.'"
That leap in logic boils Terry's blood. "Everybody receives a psychological
screening when they join the military. What I want to know is, if all these
soldiers really did have a severe pre-existing condition, how did they get
into the military in the first place?"

Terry says that trying to reverse a 5-13 discharge is a frustrating process.
A soldier has to claw through a thicket of paperwork, appeals panels and
backstage political dealing, and even with the guidance of an experienced
advocate, few are successful. "The 5-13," he says, "it's like a scarlet
letter you can't get taken off."

In the last six years the Army has diagnosed and discharged more than 5,600
soldiers because of personality disorder, according to the Defense
Department. And the numbers keep rising: 805 cases in 2001, 980 cases in
2003, 1,086 from January to November 2006. "It's getting worse and worse
every day," says the official who handles discharge papers. "At my office
the numbers started out normal. Now it's up to three or four soldiers each
day. It's like, suddenly everybody has a personality disorder."

The reason is simple, he says. "They're saving a buck. And they're saving
the VA money too. It's all about money."

Exactly how much money is difficult to calculate. Defense Department records
show that across the entire armed forces, more than 22,500 soldiers have
been dismissed due to personality disorder in the last six years. How much
those soldiers would have collected in disability pay would have been
determined by a medical board, which evaluates just how disabled a veteran
is. A completely disabled soldier receives about $44,000 a year. In a recent
study on the cost of veterans' benefits for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
Harvard professor Linda Bilmes estimates an average disability payout of
$8,890 per year and a future life expectancy of forty years for soldiers
returning from service.

Using those figures, by discharging soldiers under Chapter 5-13, the
military could be saving upwards of $8 billion in disability pay. Add to
that savings the cost of medical care over the soldiers' lifetimes. Bilmes
estimates that each year the VA spends an average of $5,000 in medical care
per veteran. Applying those numbers, by discharging 22,500 soldiers because
of personality disorder, the military saves $4.5 billion in medical care
over their lifetimes.

Town says Fort Carson psychologist Mark Wexler assured him that he would
receive disability benefits, VA medical care and that he'd get to keep his
bonus--good news he discussed with Christian Fields and Brandon Murray, two
soldiers in his unit at Fort Carson. "We talked about it many times," Murray
says. "Jon said the doctor there promised him benefits, and he was happy
about it. Who wouldn't be?" Town shared that excitement with his wife,
Kristy, shortly after his appointment with Wexler. "He said that Wexler had
explained to him that he'd get to keep his benefits," Kristy says, "that the
doctor had looked into it, and it was all coming with the chapter he was
getting."

In fact, Town would not get disability pay or receive long-term VA medical
care. And he would have to give back the bulk of his $15,000 bonus.
Returning that money meant Town would leave Fort Carson less than
empty-handed: He now owed the Army more than $3,000. "We had this on our
heads the whole way, driving home to Ohio," says Town. Wexler made him
promises, he says, about what would happen if he went along with the
diagnosis. "The final day, we find out, none of it was true. It was a total
shock. I felt like I'd been betrayed by the Army."

Wexler denies discussing benefits with Town. In a statement, the
psychologist writes, "I have never discussed benefits with my patients as
that is not my area of expertise. The only thing I said to Spc. Town was
that the Chapter 5-13 is an honorable discharge... . I assure you, after over
15 years in my position, both as active duty and now civilian, I don't
presume to know all the details about benefits and therefore do not discuss
them with my patients."

Wexler's boss, Col. Steven Knorr, chief of the Department of Behavioral
Health at Evans Army Hospital, declined to speak about Town's case. When
asked if doctors at Fort Carson were assuring patients set for a 5-13
discharge that they'll receive disability benefits and keep their bonuses,
Knorr said, "I don't believe they're doing that."

Not the Man He Used to Be

Interviews with soldiers diagnosed with personality disorder suggest that
the military is using the psychological condition as a catch-all diagnosis,
encompassing symptoms as diverse as deafness, headaches and schizophrenic
delusions. That flies in the face of the Army's own regulations.

According to those regulations, to be classified a personality disorder, a
soldier's symptoms had to exist before he joined the military. And they have
to match the "personality disorder" described in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the national standard for
psychiatric diagnosis. Town's case provides a clear window into how these
personality disorder diagnoses are being used because even a cursory
examination of his case casts grave doubt as to whether he fits either
criterion.

Town's wife, for one, laughs in disbelief at the idea that her husband was
suffering from hearing loss before he headed to Iraq. But since returning,
she says, he can't watch TV unless the volume is full-blast, can't use the
phone unless its volume is set to high. Medical papers from Fort Carson list
Town as having no health problems before serving in Iraq; after, a Fort
Carson audiologist documents "functional (non-organic) hearing loss." Town
says his right ear, his "good" ear, has lost 50 percent of its hearing; his
left is still essentially useless.

He is more disturbed by how his memory has eroded. Since the rocket blast,
he has struggled to retain new information. "Like, I'll be driving places,
and then I totally forget where I'm going," he says. "Numbers, names,
dates--unless I knew them before, I pretty much don't remember." When Town
returned to his desk job at Fort Carson, he found himself straining to
recall the Army's regulations. "People were like, 'What are you, dumb?' And
I'm like, 'No, I'm probably smarter than you. I just can't remember stuff,'"
he says, his melancholy suddenly replaced by anger. "They don't
understand-- I got hit by a rocket."

Those bursts of rage mark the biggest change, says Kristy Town. She says the
man she married four years ago was "a real goofball. He'd do funny voices
and faces--a great Jim Carrey imitation. When the kids would get a boo-boo,
he'd fall on the ground and pretend he got a boo-boo too." Now, she says,
"his emotions are all over the place. He'll get so angry at things, and it's
not toward anybody. It's toward himself. He blames himself for everything."
He has a hard time sleeping and doesn't spend as much time as he used to
with the kids. "They get rowdy when they play, and he just has to be alone.
It's almost like his nerves can't handle it."

Kristy begins to cry, pauses, before forcing herself to continue. She's been
watching him when he's alone, she says. "He kind of... zones out, almost
like he's in a daze."

In May 2006 Town tried to electrocute himself, dropping his wife's hair
dryer into the bathtub. The dryer short-circuited before it could electrify
the water. Fort Carson officials put Town in an off-post hospital that
specializes in suicidal depression. Town had been promoted to corporal after
returning from Iraq; he was stripped of that rank and reduced back to
specialist. "When he came back, I tried to be the same," Kristy says. "He
just can't. He's definitely not the man he used to be."

Town says his dreams have changed too. They keep taking him back to Ramadi,
to the death of a good friend who'd been too near an explosion, taken too
much shrapnel to the face. In his dreams Town returns there night after
night to soak up the blood.

He stops his description for a rare moment of levity. "Sleep didn't use to
be like that," he says. "I used to sleep just fine."

How the Army determined then that Town's behavioral problems existed before
his military service is unclear. Wexler, the Fort Carson psychologist who
made the diagnosis, didn't interview any of Town's family or friends. It's
unclear whether he even questioned Town's fellow soldiers in 2-17 Field
Artillery, men like Fields, Murray and Michael Forbus, who could have
testified to his stability and award-winning performance before the October
2004 rocket attack. As Forbus puts it, before the attack Town was "one of
the best in our unit"; after, "the son of a gun was deaf in one ear. He
seemed lost and disoriented. It just took the life out of him."

Town finds his diagnosis especially strange because the Diagnostic Manual
appears to preclude cases like his. It says that a pattern of erratic
behavior cannot be labeled a "personality disorder" if it's from a head
injury. The specialist asserts that his hearing loss, headaches and anger
all began with the rocket attack that knocked him unconscious.

Wexler did not reply to repeated requests seeking comment on Town's
diagnosis. But Col. Knorr of Fort Carson's Evans hospital says he's
confident his doctors are properly diagnosing personality disorder. The
colonel says there is a simple explanation as to why in so many cases the
lifelong condition of personality disorder isn't apparent until after
serving in Iraq. Traumatic experiences, Knorr says, can trigger a condition
that has lain dormant for years. "They may have done fine in high school and
before, but it comes out during the stress of service."

"I've never heard of that occurring," says Keith Armstrong, a clinical
professor with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California,
San Francisco. Armstrong has been counseling traumatized veterans for more
than twenty years at the San Francisco VA; most recently he is the co-author
of Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning From Iraq and
Afghanistan and Their Families. "Personality disorder is a diagnosis I'm
very cautious about," he says. "My question would be, has PTSD been ruled
out? It seems to me that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, let's
see if it's a duck before other factors are implicated."

Knorr admits that in most cases, before making a diagnosis, his doctors only
interview the soldier. But he adds that interviewing family members,
untrained to recognize signs of personality disorder, would be of limited
value. "The soldier's perception and their parents' perception is that they
were fine. But maybe they didn't or weren't able to see that wasn't the
case."

Armstrong takes a very different approach. He says family is a "crucial
part" of the diagnosis and treatment of soldiers returning from war. The
professor sees parents and wives as so important, he encourages his soldiers
to invite their families into the counseling sessions. "They bring in
particular information that can be helpful," he says. "By not taking
advantage of their knowledge and support, I think we're doing soldiers a
disservice."

Knorr would not discuss the specifics of Town's case. He did note, however,
that his department treats thousands of soldiers each year and says within
that population, there are bound to be a small fraction of misdiagnosed
cases and dissatisfied soldiers. He adds that the soldiers he's seen
diagnosed and discharged with personality disorder are "usually quite
pleased."

The Army holds soldiers' medical records and contact information strictly
confidential. But The Nation was able to locate a half-dozen soldiers from
bases across the country who were diagnosed with personality disorder. All
of them rejected that diagnosis. Most said military doctors tried to force
the diagnosis upon them and turned a blind eye to symptoms of PTSD and
physical injury.

One such veteran, Richard Dykstra, went to the hospital at Fort Stewart,
Georgia, complaining of flashbacks, anger and stomach pains. The doctor
there diagnosed personality disorder. Dykstra thinks the symptoms actually
stem from PTSD and a bilateral hernia he suffered in Iraq. "When I told her
my symptoms, she said, 'Oh, it looks like you've been reading up on PTSD.'
Then she basically said I was making it all up," he says.

In her report on Dykstra, Col. Ana Parodi, head of Behavioral Health at Fort
Stewart's Winn Army Hospital, writes that the soldier gives a clear
description of PTSD symptoms but lays them out with such detail, it's "as if
he had memorized the criteria." She concludes that Dykstra has personality
disorder, not PTSD, though her report also notes that Dykstra has had "no
previous psychiatric history" and that she confirmed the validity of his
symptoms with the soldier's wife.

Parodi is currently on leave and could not be reached for comment. Speaking
for Fort Stewart, Public Affairs Officer Lieut. Col. Randy Martin says that
the Army's diagnosis procedures "have been developed over time, and they are
accepted as being fair." Martin said he could not address Dykstra's case
specifically because his files have been moved to a storage facility in St.
Louis.

William Wooldridge had a similar fight with the Army. The specialist was
hauling missiles and tank ammunition outside Baghdad when, he says, a man
standing at the side of the road grabbed hold of a young girl and pushed her
in front of his truck. "The little girl," Wooldridge says, his voice
suddenly quiet, "she looked like one of my daughters."

When he returned to Fort Polk, Louisiana, Wooldridge told his doctor that he
was now hearing voices and seeing visions, hallucinations of a mangled girl
who would ask him why he had killed her. His doctor told him he had
personality disorder. "When I heard that, I flew off the handle because I
said, 'Hey, that ain't me. Before I went over there, I was a happy-go-lucky
kind of guy.'" Wooldridge says his psychologist, Capt. Patrick Brady of
Baynes-Jones Army Community Hospital, saw him for thirty minutes before
making his diagnosis. Soon after, Wooldridge was discharged from Fort Polk
under Chapter 5-13.

He began to fight that discharge immediately, without success. Then in March
2005, eighteen months after Wooldridge's dismissal, his psychiatrist at the
Memphis VA filed papers rejecting Brady's diagnosis and asserting that
Wooldridge suffered from PTSD so severe, it made him "totally disabled."
Weeks later the Army Discharge Review Board voided Wooldridge's 5-13
dismissal, but the eighteen months he'd spent lingering without benefits had
already taken its toll.

"They put me out on the street to rot, and if I had left things like they
were, there would have been no way I could have survived. I would have had
to take myself out or had someone do it for me," he says. The way they use
personality disorder to diagnose and discharge, he says, "it's like a mental
rape. That's the only way I can describe it."

Captain Brady has since left Fort Polk and is now on staff at Fort
Wainwright, Alaska; recently he deployed to Iraq and was unavailable for
comment. In a statement, Maj. Byron Strother, chief of the Department of
Behavioral Health at Baynes-Jones hospital, writes that allegations that
soldiers at Fort Polk are being misdiagnosed "are not true." Strother says
diagnoses at his hospital are made "only after careful consideration of all
relevant clinical observation, direct examination [and] appropriate
testing."

If there are dissatisfied soldiers, says Knorr, the Fort Carson official,
"I'll bet not a single one of them has been diagnosed with conditions that
are clear-cut and makes them medically unfit, like schizophrenia. "

Linda Mosier disputes that. When her son Chris left for Iraq in 2004, he was
a "normal kid," she says, who'd call her long--distance and joke about the
strange food and expensive taxis overseas. When he returned home for
Christmas 2005, "he wouldn't sit down for a meal with us. He just kept
walking around. I took him to the department store for slacks, and he was
inside rushing around saying, 'Let's go, let's go, let's go.' He wouldn't
sleep, and the one time he did, he woke up screaming."

Mosier told his mother of a breaking point in Iraq: a roadside bomb that
blew up the truck in front of his. "He said his buddies were screaming. They
were on fire," she says, her voice trailing off. "He was there at the end to
pick up the hands and arms." After that Mosier started having delusions. Dr.
Wexler of Fort Carson diagnosed personality disorder. Soon after, Mosier was
discharged under Chapter 5-13.

Mosier returned home, still plagued by visions. In October he put a note on
the front door of their Des Moines, Iowa, home saying the Iraqis were after
him and he had to protect the family, then shot himself.

Mosier's mother is furious that doctors at Fort Carson treated her son for
such a brief period of time and that Wexler, citing confidentiality, refused
to tell her anything about that treatment or give her family any direction
on how to help Chris upon his return home. She does not believe her son had
a personality disorder. "They take a normal kid, he comes back messed up,
then nobody was there for him when he came back," Linda says. "They
discharged him so they didn't have to treat him."

Wexler did not reply to a written request seeking comment on Mosier's case.

Thrown to the Wolves

Today Jon Town is home, in small-town Findlay, Ohio, with no job, no
prospects and plenty of time to reflect on how he got there. Diagnosing him
with personality disorder may have saved the Army thousands of dollars, he
says, but what did Wexler have to gain?

Quite a lot, says Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans
for America, a Washington, DC-based soldiers' rights group. Since the Iraq
War began, he says, doctors have been facing an overflow of wounded soldiers
and a shortage of rooms, supplies and time to treat them. By calling PTSD a
personality disorder, they usher one soldier out quickly, freeing up space
for the three or four who are waiting.

Terry, the veterans' advocate from IWVO, notes that unlike doctors in the
private sector, Army doctors who give questionable diagnoses face no danger
of malpractice suits due to Feres v. U.S., a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that
bars soldiers from suing for negligence. To maintain that protection, Terry
says, most doctors will diagnose personality disorder when prodded to do so
by military officials.

That's precisely how the system works, says one military official familiar
with the discharge process. The official, who requested anonymity, is a
lawyer with Trial Defense Services (TDS), a unit of the Army that guides
soldiers through their 5-13 discharge. "Commanders want to get these guys
out the door and get it done fast. Even if the next soldier isn't as good,
at least he's good to go. He's deployable. So they're telling the docs what
diagnosis to give to get what discharge."

The lawyer says he knows this is happening because commanders have told him
that they're doing it. "Some have come to me and talked about doing this.
They're saying, 'Give me a specific diagnosis. It'll support a certain
chapter.'"

Colonel Martin of Fort Stewart said the prospect of commanders pressuring
doctors to diagnose personality disorder is "highly unlikely." "Doctors are
making these determinations themselves," Martin says. In a statement, Col.
William Statz, commander at Fort Polk's Baynes-Jones hospital, says, "Any
allegations that clinical decisions are influenced by either political
considerations or command pressures, at any level, are untrue."

But a second TDS lawyer, who also demanded anonymity, says he's watched the
same process play out at his base. "What I've noticed is right before a unit
deploys, we see a spike in 5-13s, as if the commanders are trying to clean
house, get rid of the soldiers they don't really need," he says. "The chain
of command just wants to eliminate them and get a new body in there fast to
plug up the holes." If anyone shows even moderate signs of psychological
distress, he says, "they're kicking them to the curb instead of treating
them."

Both lawyers say that once a commander steps in and pushes for a 5-13, the
diagnosis and discharge are carved in stone fairly fast. After that happens,
one lawyer says he points soldiers toward the Army Board for Correction of
Military Records, where a 5-13 label could be overturned, and failing that,
advises them to seek redress from their representative in Congress. Town did
that, contacting Republican Representative Michael Oxley of Ohio, with
little success. Oxley, who has since retired, did not return calls seeking
comment.

Few cases are challenged successfully or overturned later, say the TDS
lawyers. The system, says one, is essentially broken. "Right now, the Army
is eating its own. What I want to see is these soldiers getting the right
diagnosis, so they can get the right help, not be thrown to the wolves right
away. That is what they're doing."

Still, Town tries to remain undaunted. He got his story to Robinson of
Veterans for America, who brought papers on his case to an October meeting
with several top Washington officials, including Deputy Surgeon General Gale
Pollock, Assistant Surgeon General Bernard DeKoning and Republican Senator
Kit Bond of Missouri. There Robinson laid out the larger 5-13 problem and
submitted a briefing specifically on Town.

"We got a very positive response," Robinson says. "After we presented, they
were almost appalled, like we are every day. They said, 'We didn't know this
was happening.'" Robinson says the deputy surgeon general promised to look
into Town's case and the others presented to her. Senator Bond, whose son
has served in Iraq, floated the idea of a Congressional hearing if the 5-13
issue isn't resolved. The senator did not return calls seeking comment.

In the meantime, Town is doing his best to keep his head in check. He says
his nightmares have been waning in recent weeks, but most of his problems
persist. He's thinking of going to a veterans support group in Toledo,
forty-five miles north of Findlay. There will be guys there who have been
through this, he says, vets who understand.

Town hesitates, his voice suddenly much softer. "I have my good days and my
bad days," he says. "It all depends on whether I wake up in Findlay or
Iraq."

Johnny W. Waltz
Director of Investigative Research and Publications
Iraq War Veterans Organization, Inc.
www.iraqwarveterans .org

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