[Peace-discuss] warriors abandoned

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

Latest Georgia Headlines

  
  
Senators: Conditions `unacceptable for sick reservists at Fort Stewart

The Associated Press - SAVANNAH, Ga.

More than 600 sick and injured Army reservists enduring long waits for 
medical treatment while living in spartan barracks should be sent to less crowded 
military facilities closer to their homes, two U.S. senators said in a report 
Friday.
The report by Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., blamed Army 
commanders for ignoring requests from Fort Stewart for additional medical staff 
to handle the needs of more than 20,000 active-duty and reserve troops who 
returned from Iraq in late summer.
It also said the Army needs to renovate the concrete barracks _ with open 
bunks, detatched toilets and often no air-conditioning _ being used to house sick 
reservists.
Regardless of the nature of the medical malady, these soldiers have been 
enduring unacceptable conditions for as many as 10 months, said the report by Bond 
and Leahy, co-chairmen of the Senate National Guard Caucus.
It would be far better to send these troops back home, the senators wrote. 
They could be assigned to another (military facility) closer to their families.
Bond and Leahy sent aides to Fort Stewart this week to investigate complaints 
by National Guard and Army Reserve troops that theyve had to live in 
substandard housing and wait for care while active-duty soldiers get treated first.
The Army post has 633 reservists on medical hold, which means theyre too sick 
or injured for regular duty but dont require hospitalization. The soldiers, 
405 of whom got hurt or ill while deployed to Iraq, suffer a range of 
complaints from sprained ankles to stomach pains to a few with war wounds.
Army spokesmen at Fort Stewart and the Pentagon said they had no immediate 
comment because they had not yet seen the report. Acting Army Secretary Les 
Brownlee and Lt. Gen. James Peake, the Army surgeon general, are scheduled to 
visit the south Georgia fort near Savannah on Saturday.
The senators report said the Army needs to send additional medical staff to 
Fort Stewart to ease the strain of caring for an entire division, the 3rd 
Infantry Division, thats recently returned from war.
And while the Army has approved $4 million to renovate the barracks on post, 
the work will take at least three months _ too long to help the sick 
reservists living there now.
Col. John Kidd, garrison commander at Fort Stewart, has said the barracks 
were built for National Guard troops to use during training, but the post has 
nowhere else to put the sick reservists.
The senators report quoted one unnamed Fort Stewart commander as saying the 
reservists were having to endure a go slow medical review system while living 
in get them the hell out of here barracks.
The report did not accuse Fort Stewart of giving preferential medical 
treatment to active-duty troops while making reservists wait _ which Fort Stewart has 
denied doing.
Many of the medically held Reservists, lacking sufficient knowledge of the 
militarys medical bureaucracy, chalk up delays in treatment to preferential 
treatment for active forces, the report said