Fort Carson Policy Targeted Troubled, Wounded Soldiers, Still

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 8, 2015

Warrior Transition Units have been in the news for a long time now because some reporters actually bothered to tell their stories. Thanks to the Dallas Morning News and NBC out of Texas, some of their stories were told. Because of their reporting Army orders new training for Warrior Transition Units

The Army has ordered new training to address complaints from wounded soldiers describing harassment and intimidation inside the nation’s Warrior Transition Units, which are supposed to help these soldiers heal.

The problem is, not much has changed since 2011 for those who served, risked their lives only to find those lives were still being jepordized by the military claiming to to take their suffering seriously.

Critics: Fort Carson policy targeted troubled, wounded soldiers
Stars and Stripes
By Bill Murphy Jr.
Published: November 15, 2011

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Army Cpl. Joshua Smith saw the orange glow against the South Carolina night sky long before he reached his sister’s apartment complex. The fire in the back buildings was intense. People stood in shock, watching the blaze.

Smith leapt from his rental car and vaulted a five-foot brick wall, yelling at onlookers to call for help. He grabbed an exercise weight someone had left in the yard, threw it through a sliding glass door and burst into the burning building. He shepherded a mother and her 16-month-old daughter to safety, then turned his attention to the other apartments, kicking down doors, running room to room, making sure no one else was trapped. By the time he emerged, firefighters had arrived. The local TV news hailed the 22-year-old infantryman — home on leave after a tour in Iraq before transferring to Fort Carson, Colo. — whose quick action saved lives.

“It was easy,” Smith said later. “Nobody was shooting at me.”

Sixteen months later, in November 2010, the acting commander at Fort Carson, Brig. Gen. James H. Doty, pinned the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for noncombat heroism, to Smith’s chest. It was the young soldier’s second valor medal in three years in the military, after an Army Commendation Medal with valor device that he’d been awarded for his combat service.

For all his heroics, however, Smith’s life was falling apart.

‘This pattern ... is so clear'

With soldiers coming home broken in record numbers, the Army has pledged to take care of their physical and mental wounds. The quick-separation policy at Fort Carson stands in direct conflict with that pledge.

The Army touts a zero-tolerance policy for drug use, but commanders have considerable discretion regarding how much punishment soldiers receive and whether they ultimately are retained or discharged.

Moreover, defense lawyers and veterans advocates point to many cases in which soldiers who tested positive for use of drugs once, or occasionally even twice or more — but who were not facing a possible medical discharge — have been retained on active duty.

Just last month, the vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, talked about the link between PTSD and traumatic brain injury on the one hand, and substance abuse and suicide on the other.
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That "pattern" was clear way back in 2011 when that report came out. At least, to some. What wasn't clear was who would be the "one too many" the military keeps talking about when they have to answer questions about military suicide reports? When will that actually happen? When will there be one too many before things change for the men and women risking their lives and paying the price, far too often, with their lives because their suffering has been responded to with abuse?

Fort Carson Wounded Warrior Abused by Doctor and Social Worker
Military.com
by Richard Sisk
Feb 07, 2015

The abuse was "largely associated with disrespect, harassment, belittlement within the three WTUs in Texas" - Fort Hood, Fort Bliss and Brooke Army Medical Center, Toner told the military personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Editor's Note: The following article updates the previous one to include Army corrections to misstatements made by Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho on the mistreatment of a soldier at the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Carson, Colo.

A soldier at the Fort Carson, Colo., Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) suffered mistreatment by a doctor and a social worker for several months last year, an Army investigation concluded.

The fact-finding investigation under Article 15-6 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice found that the two heath care providers engaged in "problematic encounters" with the soldier between February and May of 2014, the Army said.

At a roundtable session with Pentagon reporters Friday, Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho said that the doctor and the social worker "showed a lack of dignity and respect to one soldier" and had been disciplined.

Horoho said the mistreatment at Fort Carson's WTU was limited to the two heath care providers and "we did not find that there was a systemic issue."

The Army said that the complaints of several other soldiers dating back to 2011 were also reviewed but were determined "not to contain problematic behavior by the providers.

Horoho initially suggested that the abuse by the doctor and the social worker occurred in the 2009-2013 time frame but the Army later put out a correction to several of her statements to reflect that the Fort Carson incidents occurred last year and were the subject an Article 15-6 investigation.

It was not the first time the WTU at Fort Carson had come under scrutiny. In 2010, the Army disputed a New York Times report on the Fort Carson WTUs that detailed shortcomings in therapy, and patients becoming addicted to medications and suffering abuse from non-commissioned officers.
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