I know there has been a lot of hoopla going on about family support for military family members. I haven’t posted much about it and for a lot of reasons. One reason being that I HEAR a lot about what they are going to do, but I see a different reality when I talk to and visit with military families.
Things don’t add up.
Below is an article written about the husband of a very dear friend of mine. I have known about this for quite some time and I am so glad they have come forward to talk. No wounded warrior and wounded warrior family should ever go through what the Katters have been through. When the warrior faces it the entire family is deeply affected.
Transition staff for military wounded poorly trained, stigmatized, fatigued
EXCERPT
By Carl Prine
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, February 7, 2011FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — On May 28, 2007, a bomb planted by an Iraqi insurgent along Route Canal in the village of Zaganiyah tore into Sgt Ken Katter’s truck.
Blood dribbling from his ears and regaining consciousness, the Army cavalry scout dusted himself off and never left the front lines of America’s Global War on Terror.
The 5-73rd Cavalry hung a Purple Heart on his chest, and Katter kept patrolling Diyalah Province’s deadliest acres, despite mounting seizures, debilitating migraines, wrenching neck and back pain, and nerve tremors that quaked his arm, according to medical records provided to the Tribune-Review.
Once back at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, however, Katter’s chain of command accused him of shirking his duty. Shuffled off to a Warrior Transition Battalion in the shadow of the base’s Womack Army Medical Center, Katter was bedeviled for nearly three years by “cadre” staffers, soldiers without combat experience who were supposed to care for him.
For a man who honorably served in the Marine Corps and left to become a Michigan police officer before joining the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, it was hard to understand.
“I didn’t expect our own people to treat us like that. At least in Iraq, we knew who the enemies were,” said Katter, 43, of Saginaw, Mich.
His cadre stole Christmas presents intended for the wounded, threatened him with criminal charges for lying about his fitness — allegations later proven unfounded by a Fort Bragg investigation — and tagged him with a crude nickname they scrawled on a duty board, according to Fort Bragg files, as well as interviews with Katter and nearly a dozen former combat veterans and local volunteers assigned to his Warrior Transition unit.
Read more: Transition staff for military wounded poorly trained, stigmatized, fatigued – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_721603.html#ixzz1DHmvHJvc
