SHARE THIS SHOW:
RELATED CONVERSATIONS:
RECENTLY ON TOL:
TOL Our Town
- A tumblr site dedicated to the people and places that make up Oregon and Southwest Washington.
TAGS:
The Oregon National Guard has been showing up a lot in the news recently.
A group of Oregon soldiers have filed suit against military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root. The soldiers say they have suffered health problems after being exposed to hexavalent chromium while protecting a KBR convoy.
Meanwhile, Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Kurt Schrader have taken up the cause of Guard soldiers who say they are treated differently than their Army counterparts. They are asking the Defense Department and the Government Accountability Office to follow up with claims that Guard soldiers are not given the same respect as Army soldiers and that the Guard are not adequately looked after when they return home.
Have you or someone you know served in the National Guard? What are the challenges specific to the Guard, as opposed to other branches of the military?
Tagged as: health · military · national guard
Photo credit: The National Guard / Creative Commons
-
Are any of these claims related to PTSD and if so have the incidents been confirmed?
-
I definitly agree that National Guard soldiers are treated very differently than active duty soldiers. I was active duty for 9 years and now I am National Guard in Oregon. I am a medic and the most difficult part of my job is seeing that injured National Guard soldiers are getting the medical care they deserve. On Active duty, there are plenty of resources and medical care available but not so much in the National Guard. I know of several soldiers who have come back from deployments and had numerous medical issues that were never taken care of. I also think the leadership as a whole in the Oregon National Guard are not trained enough on how to make sure thier soldiers are getting the proper treatment or where to go for treatment. Getting treatment on Active duty is 10X easier than in the National Guard.
-
we have had EXCELLENT service from them. All of our physicians have had no problems accepting/billing Tricare as well.
Low Glycemic Foods
-
To the recent caller, Robert, I cannot disagree with him more about the level of care through TriCare. My husband is US Army retired (disabled) and we have TriCare as our secondary insurer (primary insurer through our employers) and we have had EXCELLENT service from them. All of our physicians have had no problems accepting/billing Tricare as well.
-
I agree to this posting as well. My family have Tricare as primary insurance. My wife with three kids never had any problems seeing their physician or referall to specialists. I have heard a lot of stories about how bad Tricare is and there are only a handful of physicians that accepts it. I personally have never had any problems with Tricare.
-
My husband and I recently had a baby, and TriCare authorized a 3-day hospital stay, our primary insurer (Aetna) only authorized 2-days (we left after 24 hours though).
-
TriCare (used to be called CHAMPUS) is what military, family members, retirees, reserve components, etc. use for medical care when military facilities are not available. As a retired soldier I've been using TriCare since 2003.
The care my wife and I get from OHSU (my TriCare provider) is great, my copays are reasonable and it appears that bills are paid quickly. Of course, the payment rate is the same as Medicare so I can see why some Drs/clinics may not want to sign up a lot of TriCare patients.
-
Can someone post a site where I can see the Madigan slide show?
-
Here's a PDF (taken from Senator Wyden's website) of the slide show.
-
Thanks for posting the link. As a health care provider, other than the insensitive slide about the depiction of a reservist/NG as a weekend warrior hat, and the warning of possible fraudulent activities. Objectively, the major intentions of the slides were good and there was nothing about directives to treat reservist/NG badly. I was not there. There may be something else going around that contributed this whole issue. Any 41stBDE soldiers who went through the demob with comments on that?
-
These kinds of problems are nothing new. The military has always treated soldiers as cheap labor to used and abused and then tossed aside with the least amount of ongoing expense possible. Just ask Vietnam vets, Korea vets, any vets.
Look up "The Bonus march", look up the essay by US Marine major general Smedly Butler, "War Is a Racket".
Cui Bono? Who benefits? That is the question to ask and the answer is that the soldiers don't benefit, Big Corporations benefit, like KBR, the Military Industrial Complex that Ike warned us about, Big Oil, etc.
I remember a slogan painted on the doors of a supply hut at Ft Lewis back in 1970, "War Is Our Business and Business is Good!"
But the facts on the ground are that War is not good for the Soldiers.
-
I need to comment on the PTSD issue...I know so many of our soldiers, Active and Guard, who have come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and more often than not, they have shown "symptoms" of PTSD. I know that the "system" for getting these guys the help they need is so hard to navigate, they usually just give up trying to get help. They end up acting out and losing so much of what their life used to be. The things they saw, the things they felt...there is no way for us "civilians" to know what they went through. Even if they were never in a fire fight, never confronted any resistance directly...there are scars there. I don't think articles like the AP article do anything but hurt these faithful public servants. It kills me to know that so many people think many of these soldiers fake symptoms. I think, if anything, they ignore the symptoms for which they should be getting help.
Also, I know some soldiers in this last demobilization, who were stuck at Ft Lewis for so long before getting to come home to see their families. They were "detained" there, going through the reintegration classes, etc., when all they wanted to do was get home. They were so close, yet they couldn't get here. A lot of them were resentful, a lot of them just ignored what the people were saying, just wanting to get through it and get out. I feel that if they had just gotten their health checked then go home to their families for at least a few days or a week. THEN I think after the shock of returning civilian life is not so fresh, THEN they should go through all the demob classes. They would get so much more out of it.
As for the Guard vs Active issue, the caller just now said that the Guard don't receive as much training. I don't know if I'd agree with that statement. I think the 41st BDE is one of the best units in the nation, Guard OR Active. I feel that is why they have been tapped so often to be deployed into war zones.
Just my opinions... Jenn
-
Great conversation! Thank you.
I am a rural mental health clinician and work with national guard vets all the time. There seems to be huge resentment for being treated as subservient 'less thans'. It complicates and compromises the whole notion of shared vision and cohesive teamwork. Each national guard veteran deserves equal treatment and when it does not occur (which it sounds like is often the case), my experience is they feel owed. There is nothing worse than an environment where equals are made to feel dehumanized, demoralized, or demeaned.
Thanks for listening!
Tom Ayala
Lebanon, Oregon
-
In response to the reporter who said that there was "animosity" between active duty and reserve/NG unit.
I a reservist who just returned from Iraq 2 months ago. I was in a national guard medical unit assigned to work at an office ran by active duty unit. My experience is that there were always some negative comments made by the active duty soldiers about reserve/NG soldiers. Of course, the same people also made negative comments about Navy,air force,marines,iraqis,british, whoever can be picked on. Certainly, I have heard same negative comments about active duty soldiers by reserve/NG soldiers as well. It just seems to be in the culture. Most importantly, when push comes to shove, everyone got together and got the work done. Just my personal experience.
-
I am not a combat veteran(10 years active army/ 10 years army/air guard); only because I fought with the military my entire career was I able to carve out a middle class life and not dependent on the service.
I don't buy Jonathan's comments. What I notice with the Guard is that they bring a different skillset to the military. There are differences but it is not quantitative. Active/Guard BOTH bring their own strengths and weaknesses.
Regardless, the issue is malfeasance on the part of DoD and the service branches. It is directly the fault of the the Dept of the Army to provide modern equipment and care. It is an embarrassment to this country to see homeless vets and especially combat vets with no support when they leave active duty. If you are wearing a star on your collar YOU carry responsibility to fix the problem.
If the nation cannot afford to care for the people directly responsible for our liberty, DON'T GO TO WAR. It saddens me when I hear about fundraisers to help the families of combat vets who deserve nothing short of lifetime medical care. If you disagree, I would argue that you wouldn't have that right without their sacrifice (whether it is measured physically or mentally).
-
My hubby was hurt in basic and has to fight tooth and nail for any help. But on the other side my father in law who is faking every thing has gotten everything handed to him. This is not right! There should be better steps for soldiers when they come back. I work for the national gurard as a civ (Civilian) and I am proud of all the soldiers that fought or fight for my rights, but some of them are abusing the system. I really think that my father in law is one of theose people that the AP artical is talking about and it makes me so angry when people abuse the system.
Hollyann Phillips
Albany Oregon
-
The problem that reservist face in regards to medical coverage for injuries on active duty is facing the most conservative sector of the military system, domestic military medical personal, meaning medical personal who never deploy themselves, and have a huge chip on their shoulder against reservist whom they feel are only serving to advance themselves in having some form of medical coverage. That they feel is taking away benefits for active duty personal. They hold reservist with as much contempt as terrorist. Because they see huge waste in government money across their service as medical personal in the military many of them have singled out reservist as free loaders, and so they fight against care for reservist because they feel it is their only way of stopping waste.
I was in the Naval reserves in the late nineties out of Whidbey Island Washington. In March on 1999 I blew out my Knee on a drill weekend. This injury took two surgeries and over a year of rehab for me to walk again. My reserve job involved heavy lifting, my civilian job was driving a garbage truck for a small family run business in Eugene.
The medical expenses were covered by Tri-Care. But in order to get that coverage, I was paid a stipend over the year I went through rehab, but it was a full time job to keep sending authorization forms back and forth from Eugene to Whidbey and my case manager in Chicago.
My pay was late almost every month, the medical staff in Whidbey were combative towards me, unavailable to take my calls, filing my paper work late resulting me not having an income for almost two months during that period. Also because my injury happened during a reserve weekend, I was unable to file for unemployment here in Oregon because I was unable to return to work hauling garbage. My income dropped over that year from almost 40K to 9k. I fell behind on child support, no medical coverage, and I was almost homeless at one point.
After two surgeries, my surgeon and physical therapist said I should not return to work involving heavy lifting. The military medical staff at Whidbey cleared me for return to duty, I then asked for a discharge because I could not in good conscious return to either of my jobs with a bum knee and possible endanger my fellow service men while lifting and loading bombs on to an airplane. My civilian job had disappeared at that point the company I worked for was bought out by a larger garbage hauler.
-
That was just beginning really of where I had to then fight with the VA (veteran Admin) for a disability rating. That took another year and getting help from Rep. Peter Defazio’s office and former Senator Gordon Smith to get my rating established with the VA.
I still advise young people today, NOT to join the reserves because you get treated like a second class citizen by your civilian employers, and the active duty military whom you work with on your drill weekends and god forbid you get hurt. Because then you’ll be in a really world of hurt and left to fight for your rights that were promised you when you signed up.
If I had not gotten my self into counseling while going through that period, I don't think I would be here typing this today.
If you’re out there going through something similar, or someone in your family is. Please, please, please get them to find a VA counselor, or check at your local Vet's center. It saved my life and helped me to work my way out of despondency (I dug myself out of the hole I feel into).
Asking for help is the hardest thing to do sometimes, but you have a duty to yourself, your family and our fellow veterans to get the help you deserve. Because if you don't fight for it, then they'll just take it all away.
-
The National Guard does sometimes get treated differently than the active component. It is particularly noticeable during mobilization and demobilization, but a little more subtle overseas. While preparing for or returning from a deployment the National Guard is restricted to post, prohibited from wearing civilian clothes or getting into a privately owned vehicle, prohibited from alcohol use regardless of the training schedule, directed to wear a different uniform than the active duty soldiers (a soft cap instead of a beret), and so on. Even their vehicles are sometimes marked differently. Active duty soldiers working with the deploying reserve unit are allowed to do all these things, but are ordered to hide it from the reservists they're supporting. Overseas, National Guard units are more likely to be given non-standard missions unrelated to their specialty while active duty units are more likely to be the ones controlling the battle space and doing a job that matches their tables of organization - not always, but generally.
Post-deployment medical care is a bit thornier of a subject. Soldiers and service providers are torn between getting soldiers back to their homes and families versus keeping them at a military post to continue receiving treatment. The VA does prioritize OIF/OEF veterans, and Tricare continues to be available for six months after being released from active duty (longer if you want to pay the monthly premium), so it's not like soldiers are left with no options. There are additional programs out there depending on the particular situation.
I do not agree with Shamus1970 about not joining the reserves - there are great benefits to doing so, both economic and otherwise, and the issues mentioned above don't change that.
-
Here is a useful link from the VA site for folks in the Northwest; http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/region.asp?ID=20 There are benefits to joining the reserves for sure, you just can't let kids join without making them aware of the possible pit falls, like catching a bullet, or worse. If you understand the dangers than you can avoid them, for the most part. But until the Miliary medical system gets fix, which is one of the biggest benifits people go after in joining the reserves, I'll keep advising kids to stay away or just go active. No one is getting rich off of reserve pay or getting that dental work they might desperately need unless they're doing their anual drill. The benifits are weak, and the danger of getting injuried and left high and dry are too great a risk for someone just starting out. If you already have time invested in the military, its not so bad.
-
Comments are now closed.
My son returned from Iraq recently. While over there, he was charged nearly $80 for internet access. Free access was available: there were 10 computers for hundreds of NG to "share". If you wanted actual access -- he used it to skype his wife and, after Xmas Eve, see pictures of his new baby daughter -- you had to pay rates that can only be called extortionate. I know Sen Merkley tried to get this changed but was unsuccessful. The govt contractor getting billions to provide services to our troops found another way to line their pockets: ripping off our soldiers for the privilege of staying in touch with their families back home.