Vets return, but not always with healthcare

[seemslikeadream]

from the November 10, 2004 edition


Vets return, but not always with healthcare

As the nation honors its veterans Thursday, some advocates say too many are falling through the cracks.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

After serving 410 days in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division, Spc. Stuart Wilf came home to Colorado on Oct. 2. He changed his clothes, borrowed his mother's car, and went out with friends to celebrate.
On the way home, he fell asleep at the wheel and had a head-on collision with a tree. He survived, but since he was newly discharged, he had no health insurance.

"That was a mind-boggling thing to find out the first day he's out of the service," says his mother, Becky Wilf. "His bill was $54,000 just for the hospital. That doesn't include the surgeon."

Specialist Wilf is just one of thousands of veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan who advocates contend are falling through the cracks of a federal system unprepared to deal with so many soldiers. After spending months in a war zone, many of the 170,000 soldiers who've returned home are struggling with their transition to back to civilian life - from coping with a maze of red tape and contradictory messages on healthcare to finding affordable housing and jobs with adequate incomes to accessing disability payments.

One of the biggest problems, according to advocates and a report by the Government Accountability Office, is a lack of resources to deal with battle fatigue, or posttraumatic stress disorder, as it's now called. Another is providing support for Reserve and National Guard troops, who make up 45 percent of the troops in Iraq

more
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1110/p03s01-usmi.html

[Ima]

1. This guy?

July 7, 2004
"If you know any politicians be sure to let them know that while they're sitting around their dinner tables with their families talking about how hard the war is on them, we're here under attack nearly 24 hours a day, dodging RPGs and fighting not just for a better Iraq, but just to stay alive"
............................................... Stuart Wilf - April 10, 2004

http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2004_thb/040707_wed.html

[happynewyear]

2. wtf? Stuart Wilf - April 10, 2004

and now he is DEAD?

:wtf:

:scared:

:kick:

[Ima]

3. Lookie here..he was a 'celebrity'

By BRENT PATTERSON THE GAZETTE

Becky Wilf has seen better pictures of her son. She just wishes Time magazine had used one.

Not that she minds that her son, Army Spc. Stuart Wilf, was pictured in Time’s tribute to the American soldier as its annual Person of the Year in this week’s issue.

“Really, it’s just a great honor,” the Colorado Springs resident said Friday

A couple months ago, Wilf sent his mother a photo of himself in Iraq wearing a camouflaged Kevlar vest and wraparound shades and holding a large pistol

http://www.gazette.com/war/1227war.html

[Luna_Chick]

4. What a Way to Support the Troops

So let me get this straight..we're anti-American for being against the war in Iraq. We're not patriots for saying our troops have been sent into harm's way under false pretense. But it's okay to screw em out of benefits and adequate military equipment??

As John Lennon said.."Strange days indeed."

[Skittles]

5. most peculiar mama

nt