On the mend - Getting out, military health issues - Navy Times

On the mend

When Lt. Col. Chip Pierce served as troop commander at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, he said, he was “frustrated” by some of the issues he saw his injured soldiers face as they made their way through the bureaucracy of the Army’s military disability retirement system.

So when the Army offered Pierce the opportunity to lead its new Warrior Transition Unit, a brigade designed specifically to address the administrative needs of injured soldiers, “I couldn’t get here fast enough,” Pierce said.

That was last spring. Already, he said, he’s seen progress.

In February, Military Times reported that soldiers languished for months — even years — in the medical hold system, facing bureaucratic tangles as they worked their way toward the physical evaluation board to determine their disability rating for retirement pay.

The stories, as well as reports from the Pentagon inspector general and Government Accountability Office and testimony of injured soldiers before Congress, brought about a series of investigations and planned changes. And the new Warrior Transition Unit meant officials could immediately put some of those changes into effect.

“Before, folks didn’t feel they had the power to make change,” Pierce said, referring to a stifling set of 50-year-old policies and procedures. “Now, everyone is an advocate for change. If something isn’t working, they can fix it.”

Since then, the Army has added staff, improved training for counselors and lawyers, and ensured soldiers have someone overseeing their progress through the system.

And Building 18 — Walter Reed’s dilapidated symbol of the breakdown in the system — no longer houses wounded soldiers.

Increase in medically retired

While the number of soldiers medically retired — meaning they received a disability rating of 30 percent or higher or had at least 18 years of service when they went through the disability process — declined from 2005 to 2006, it increased by several hundred in 2007, according to figures provided by Col. Carlton Buchanan, deputy commander of the Army’s Physical Disability Agency.

Moreover, Buchanan said, while 270 fewer soldiers were medically retired in 2006 than in 2005, the percentage of those completing the evaluation process who were medically retired went up over that time, and has continued to rise in 2007.

Perce said about 8,900 soldiers remain in the Warrior Transition Unit waiting for their final disability evaluation board.

Things still aren’t perfect; Pierce said it’s hard to judge how soldiers feel about the improvements because they weren’t in the system a year ago. And there are still cases taking longer than they should to go through the process.

But now, rather than justifying a months-long quagmire, as had been done by other officials in the past, Pierce said his office tracks, by name, every soldier whose transition takes longer than 60 days. Prior to the 60-day mark, soldiers’ squad leaders in the Warrior Transition units are responsible for making sure soldiers move through as quickly as possible.

Marines’ Wounded Warriors

The Marine Corps also stood up a Wounded Warriors regiment last spring to keep track of Marines and sailors going through the disability retirement system.

Though the Marine Corps and Navy have a better track record for getting service members through the process, there have been worries about the equity of their ratings system.

A Military Times investigation last spring found that enlisted Marines lag far behind enlisted sailors and airmen in the size of the average disability payments they are awarded.

The 2006 data released by the Defense Department’s Office of the Actuary show Marines and soldiers continue to lag, even though they have higher injury rates and could be expected to have a greater proportion of serious injuries because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than do sailors or airmen. Their ranks and times in service were also comparable.

By the numbers

The average monthly disability payments for enlisted members receiving disability pay from the military in 2006:

• Air Force: $963

• Navy: $845

• Army: $792

• Marine Corps: $774

Officers had similar discrepancies:

• Air Force: $2,668

• Navy: $2,392

• Marine Corps: $2,336

• Army: $2,067

According to the Office of the Actuary, the number of Marines medically retired in 2006 went up by about 200 compared with the previous year — far more than any other service. The Marine Corps did not comment on the figures by press time.