you bleed on it, you bought it

[grebo]

this sux big hairy balls

linkystink

Soldier pays for armor
Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded
By Eric Eyre

The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.
A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.
But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.
He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.
He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.
Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.
“I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter,” Rebrook said. “They took it off me and burned it.”
But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.
Rebrook’s mother, Beckie Drumheler, said she was saddened — and angry — when she learned that the Army discharged her son with a $700 bill. Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better, she said.
“It’s outrageous, ridiculous and unconscionable,” Drumheler said. “I wanted to stand on a street corner and yell through a megaphone about this.”
Rebrook was standing in the turret of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle when the roadside bomb exploded Jan. 11, 2005. The explosion fractured his arm and severed an artery. A Black Hawk helicopter airlifted him to a combat support hospital in Baghdad.
He was later flown to a hospital in Germany for surgery, then on to Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C., for more surgeries. Doctors operated on his arm seven times in all.
But Rebrook’s right arm never recovered completely. He still has range of motion problems. He still has pain when he turns over to sleep at night.
Even with the injury, Rebrook said he didn’t want to leave the Army. He said the “medical separation” discharge was the Army’s decision, not his.
So after eight months at Fort Hood, he gathered up his gear and started the “long process” to leave the Army for good.
Things went smoothly until officers asked him for his “OTV,” his “outer tactical vest,” or body armor, which was missing. A battalion supply officer had failed to document the loss of the vest in Iraq.
“They said that I owed them $700,” Rebrook said. “It was like ‘thank you for your service, now here’s the bill for $700.’ I had to pay for it if I wanted to get on with my life.”
In the past, the Army allowed to soldiers to write memos, explaining the loss and destruction of gear, Rebrook said.
But a new policy required a “report of survey” from the field that documented the loss.
Rebrook said he knows other soldiers who also have been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.
“It’s a combat loss,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a cost passed on to the soldier. If a soldier’s stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldn’t have to pay for it.”
Rebrook said he tried to get a battalion commander to sign a waiver on the battle armor, but the officer declined. Rebrook was told he’d have to supply statements from witnesses to verify the body armor was taken from him and burned.
“There’s a complete lack of empathy from senior officers who don’t know what it’s like to be a combat soldier on the ground,” Rebrook said. “There’s a whole lot of people who don’t want to help you. They’re more concerned with process than product.”
Rebrook, who graduated with honors from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., spent more than four years on active duty. He served six months in Iraq.
Now, Rebrook is sending out résumés, trying to find a job. He plans to return to college to take a couple of pre-med classes and apply to medical school. He wants to be a doctor someday.
“From being an infantryman, I know what it’s like to hurt people,” Rebrook said. “But now I’d like to help people.”

[Evilbink]

“It’s outrageous, ridiculous and unconscionable,”
Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better."

All to true...

[DARKGYM]

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident, this kind of stuff happens all the time within the military. The problem lies with people not following up on what happened to their kit. I totally agree that if it was destroyed during operations or training then the military should pick up the tab, but it comes down to the fact that when you joined you signed for all of this gear. With that you've accepted responsibility for it.

[VoldtaEngler]

that sucks..way to give back to the soliders.

[Bondage Clown]

THANK YOU Pres. clinton for your past screw-ups with the military that lead us to where we are now.. THANK YOU Pres. Bush for following along with Clinton's attitude t'ward our military... and THANK YOU American People for not having the balls to Revolt against the system...

THANK YOU.. THANK YOU... THANK YOU

[skintwisterman]

God bless America.

With Capitalist techniques like this, Communism is DOOMED.

[Lady Alias]

Hell, that really pisses me off.

[grebo]

i think that all bills sent to soldiers should be paid out of expresidents pensions

[Rockwulf]

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident, this kind of stuff happens all the time within the military. The problem lies with people not following up on what happened to their kit. I totally agree that if it was destroyed during operations or training then the military should pick up the tab, but it comes down to the fact that when you joined you signed for all of this gear. With that you've accepted responsibility for it.

Agreed.

For all the bitching people do, they forget that it's still a VOLUNTEER army. You join up for the paycheck, you live with the dangers and you follow the rules.

That armor probably saved that grunt's life. Would he rather have to pay 700 bucks or his family pay funeral costs???

[Shivvenfist]

That happened to my grandfather. He was at Pearl Harbor, and he was ordered to pay for his tunic, because of damage to it in the fighting.

This makes me physically ill.

[Pull~My~Hair]

one time I went to the emergency room and they wanted to give me an i.v. I told them my veins always roll to do it in my hand not my arm, of course they didnt listen and 6 needles and four doctors later they finally got a good vein. But the dr. forgot to close the end of the tube and blood sprayed everywhere. When I got the hospital bill, they charged me for every needle and for the blanket that got blood on it. WTF, I have to pay for someone elses incompetance and arogance to not liten to me in the first fucking place....poor dude