$53 Million Barracks Won't Help Soldiers Who Can't Get In

​Wounded Warriors Get $53 Million Barracks, But that Won't Help Soldiers Who Can't Get In
By Nina Shapiro Tue., Aug. 16 2011

Joint Base Lewis-McChord held a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday for a $53 million barracks that will house wounded soldiers. The facility, part of the base's "Warrior Transition Battalion," features wood floors and barbeque grills, and was hailed by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks as a sign of "significant improvement" in the way the Army treats its returning soldiers. As two recent suicides show, though, a fancy new barracks isn't likely to insure that soldiers get the help they need.
On June 28, Army Ranger Jared Hagemann, stationed at Lewis-McChord shot himself in the head. "He needed psychological help," says Michael Prysner, a Los Angeles-based organizer with the national veterans' group March Forward who has talked to Hagemann's widow, Ashley. Hagemann (pictured above) had been trying to get that help since his first deployment, Prysner says.

Yet the Army kept redeploying Hagemann. Before he killed himself, he faced a staggering ninth deployment. The staff sergeant, convinced that he was damned for his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, fought to get out of another tour, but the Army insisted, according to a KOMO-TV interview with Ashley.

Several veterans' rights activists who spoke with SW today see Hagemann's fate as typical of many damaged soldiers. They don't go to the Wounded Transition Battalion because they aren't judged wounded enough, and the military is desperate for their manpower.

Kevin Baker, who was discharged from the 4-9 Infantry Regimen last December, says that virtually "every person in my unit on rear detachment was trying to get into WTB." A rear detachment is composed of soldiers who stay at the base, or are sent back from war due to mental or physical injuries. He says his detachment held about 15 people, and none were admitted into the battalion for wounded soldiers.
read more here