Shipping out nearly killed him, but not good enough says DOD

If he died, well then that's a different story but he lived. The part about him almost dying because of the injection he had to get, that didn't count and this is simply wrong!

Missouri veteran injured by vaccine ineligible for benefit
By DAVID GOLDSTEIN
The Star’s Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON It wasn’t a bullet or roadside bomb that felled Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez three years ago, after just nine days in Iraq.

It was an injection into his arm before his Marine Corps unit left the United States.

It left Lopez in a coma, paralyzed and unable for a time to breathe on his own. He can walk now, but with a limp. He has to wear a urine bag, has short-term memory loss and must swallow 15 pills daily to control leg spasms and other ailments.

Yet the Springfield, Mo., man does not qualify for a special GI benefit of up to $100,000 for troops who suffer traumatic injuries.

Seemed “pretty traumatic to me,” Lopez said.

“I could have easily died or not been able to walk because of that. It destroyed my world.”

Lopez suffered a rare reaction to the smallpox vaccine. The vaccine is not mandatory, but the military strongly encourages troops to take it.
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