He had suffered a back injury during a previous tour in Iraq when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle crashed, and his injuries were so severe, the Army finally allowed him medical retirement last month, after determining he was no longer fit to serve. Medical retirement from the Army is a lengthy, paperwork-intensive process, one that had started for Smart last December. But to his astonishment, Smart's commanders pushed to deploy him in March, even as the paperwork for his medical retirement was working its way through the bureaucracy.
Mark Benjamin, the first to uncover the military's ill treatment of injured troops, has a new piece at Salon on the latest redeployments. Take 3rd Brigade Captain Hunter Smart, for example:
"They were definitely wanting me to be deployed," Smart said. "Up until a few weeks ago, I was set to go on a plane," he said.
Smart saved an e-mail exchange in which his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Todd Ratliff, suggests that if the paperwork for Smart's medical retirement was not complete when the unit deployed, Smart might be forced to come along. "If for some reason you are still around when we deploy there is a chance we may take you to support us in Kuwait," Ratliff wrote in an e-mail to Smart on Feb. 16.
Smart fought against his redeployment, using the resources available to him as an officer to carefully shepherd his medical retirement papers through the Army bureaucracy just in time. But the experience left him worried about injured enlisted soldiers who were not so lucky -- and left him furious at those in charge. Military commanders "could care less about the soldier's physical and mental welfare, as long as they can shoot straight," Smart said. "Our military is stretched to its breaking point," he added. "Commanders are being backed into a corner in order to produce units that on paper are ready to deploy. They are casting the moral and ethical implications -- and soldiers -- to the side."
Seems to me that "casting the moral and ethical implications" aside has been a mark of the Bush administration from its earliest days of secretive energy policies, through ignoring the threat of an attack, to cooking up a war on false pretenses to... it goes on and on. For instance, have they finally stopped sending injured soldiers back to battle? Nope.
The Army's inspector general and the Government Accountability Office have both launched inquiries since Salon first reported on the deployment of injured troops. There is no indication of when either will issue its findings.
