Forgotten casualties

Mentally scarred by the horrors they've endured in Iraq, many returning U.S. soldiers say the military isn't giving them the help they deserve.

By Lynn Harris

Sept. 22, 2004 | Mike Lemke, a 45-year-old Army National Guard police sergeant from Colorado Springs, Colo., volunteered for active duty after seeing the twin towers fall on TV. "I wanted to, you know, kick some tail," he says. He was sent home from Iraq in August 2003 because of orthopedic and cardiovascular problems -- and with memories and feelings he couldn't shake. He'd seen what was left of one of Saddam's prisons, prowled by feral dogs with rotting limbs in their mouths; he'd mingled constantly with civilians, never knowing if one was armed. "You never feel completely safe," he says. "That stays with you."

Lemke could not sleep for his first 22 days in the medical barracks in Colorado's Fort Carson, where he remained for more than a year on "medical holdover" -- a period during which wounded soldiers await treatment and subsequently either return to duty or get a medical exit from the Army. He experienced flashbacks and temper surges and would hit the dirt at the sound of a jackhammer.

No one approached Lemke to inquire about his mental health. Only when a nurse practitioner happened to ask him how he was sleeping did the story come out -- and even then it took him two weeks to accept her suggestion that he seek counseling.

Why didn't Lemke ask for help? "There's a culture here of unless your legs have been torpedoed off or your arm's shot off, then it's not a combat injury," he says. "I did the same thing that everyone does in the military: You suck it up. You don't whine."

Lemke is still on medication and in therapy, and is not employed. He is angry at the Army for many reasons, including his treatment during the medical holdover. But the issue that will most directly affect his future is his dispute with the Army over his disability rating.

The Army Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) -- the body that works in concert with the Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) to determine wounded soldiers' medical retirement and disability status according to the detailed specifications in Army Regulation 635-40 -- gave Lemke a 10 percent disability rating for PTSD, which classifies it as "mild" and as allowing for "adequate" job and social functioning.

Whether a soldier is given a 30 percent rating or a rating less than that has major financial implications. A 30 percent rating grants a soldier lifetime disability benefits, along with the military's regular retirement benefits. Anything less than 30 percent results only in a one-time severance payment: two times the soldier's base pay times total years of active duty (up to a maximum of 12 years). Had Lemke received medical retirement, he estimates that he'd have gotten $1,200 to $1,600 every month for the rest of his life. His severance payment is far less. His 12 years of part-time duty convert to six years of active duty. Result, in his case: "For someone who was available to the government for 12 years, it's $26K and adios," he says.

The Army, citing privacy regulations, declined to discuss the particulars of Lemke's or any other soldier's case.

Lemke is one of a number of returning soldiers, mostly Army National Guard and Reserve, who say they are struggling not only to heal from physical and psychological wounds, but also to get proper mental health treatment while in the Army's care -- and adequate financial compensation when their medical condition forces them to leave the Army.

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