A Sad Article about US Wounded War Veterans

[5minutemajor]

This article really tugged at my heart. I feel for these hero's who served their country knowing full well the risks and came home and are left on their own with their own families being put into difficult and life altering situations to pay for their medical care. VA and the US government should be ashamed. You never see or hear these hero's stories on the 6 o'clock news. I salute  these brave men and women who served and came home disfigured and disabled and left to fend for themselves.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070930/ap_on_re_us/coming_home_wounded_the_price

 

[tomahawk6]

While I sympathize with our wounded warriors as they transition to civilian life, maybe the best thing we can do is have them attend a basic finance course. The article wants to give the impression that the government doesnt care but they do provide a pension and medical care. The poster boy for this article is a cashiered former Major.

He stews alternately over suicide and finances, his $43,000 in credit card debt, his $4,330 in federal checks each month — the government's compensation for his total disability from post-traumatic stress disorder. His flashbacks, thoughts of suicide, and anxiety over imagined threats — all documented for six years in his military record — keep him from working.

The disability payments don't cover the $5,700-a-month cost of his adjustable home mortgage and equity loans. He owes more on his house than its market value, so he can't sell it — but he may soon lose it to the bank.

"I love this house. It makes me feel safe," he says.

Awad could once afford it. He used to earn $100,000 a year as a 16-year veteran major with a master's degree in management who excelled at logistics. Now, at age 38, he can't even manage his own life.

There's another twist. This dedicated Marine was given a "general" discharge 15 months ago for an extramarital affair with a woman, also a Marine. That's even though his military therapists blamed this impulsive conduct on post-traumatic stress aggravated by his Middle East tours.

Luckily, his discharge, though not unqualifiedly honorable, left intact his rights to medical care and disability payments — or he'd be in sadder shape.

Divorced since developing PTSD, Awad has two daughters who live elsewhere. He spends much of his days hoisting weights and thwacking a punching bag in the dimness of his garage. He passes nights largely sleepless, a zombie shuffling through the bare rooms of his home in sunny California wine country.