The Army Times alleges that the Army is deliberately giving wounded troops a lower disability rating in order to keep costs low. The sources of their charge are veterans advocates and the wounded.
Based on numbers alone, it would appear that something strange is going on. In 2001 642 soldiers received a permanent disability retirement; in 2005 that number had shrunk two-thirds to 209. How that can be when we've been at war for the past several years makes no sense. Not surprisingly, the number of wounded placed on temporary disability has increased from 165 in 2001 to 837 in 2005. It's the process of moving from temporary to permanent that is the problem. Soldiers can stay in the temporary category for as long as five years.
As with the Walter Reed case, the system is complicated. It seems that we can quickly get someone to the front lines, but we have major problems if that person does not come back whole from the front lines.
It's not as though we're talking big bucks here, at least in Pentagon terms. In 2004 only $1.2 billion was spent on disability benefits. Spread over 90,000 wounded, that amounts to $13,333 a year. Tell me again how much we're spending on weapons of the future.
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