March 11, 2007: Army Ordering Wounded, Medically Unfit Veterans to Go Back to Iraq

The US Army is ordering soldiers already wounded in Iraq and certified as medically unfit for combat to return to Iraq anyway, regardless of their fitness for duty. "This is not right," says Master Sergeant Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers. If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight." Some of Jenkins’s fellow soldiers also being sent back are too injured to wear their body armor, according to their medical records, but Jenkins and others had their "physical profiles" summarily downgraded by Army medical officials, without even a medical exam, so they could be returned to Iraq. Jenkins thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he says. Steve Robinson of Veterans for America says, "You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit. It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield." Brigade commander Colonel Wayne Grigsby says he doesn’t know how many wounded and injured soldiers are returning to Iraq, but "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," he says. Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries say they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one soldier says. "How high does it go?" [Salon, 3/11/2007]