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VA HEALTHCARE SYSTEM FAILS VET FEATURED IN HBO

DOCUMENTARY -- "No matter what, we have to wait an hour

and a half, guaranteed. Then you see these doctors who are 190

years old, and you have to repeat everything you say."

 

 

For a previous story about Jacob Schick, click here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfFEB07/nf021907-2.htm

For more about the HBO documentary produced by James Gandolfini...click to following two links...
http://vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfSEP07/nf090607-9.htm

http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfSEP07/nf090607-8.htm

Today's story here... http://blog.nola.com/
times-picayune/2007/09/veteran
s_health_care_system_fa.html

Story below:

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Veterans' health care system fails Gretna Marine

by Bill Walsh, Washington bureau

 

WASHINGTON -- Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick says he was ready to die in Iraq. He wasn't prepared to come home in pieces.

The bomb that tore through the floor of his Humvee in the fall of 2004 shredded his legs and left arm. Forty-six surgeries later, Schick is an amputee still learning to cope with physical limitations that as a star high school athlete he never dreamed he would face.

Perhaps just as daunting has been learning to navigate the veterans' health care system, which he says demeans the sacrifice of all veterans.

"When you have to deal with the VA (Veterans Affairs) or TRICARE (the federal health insurance program), you feel beaten down," Schick said. "You are a number, and you feel like a number. It's a total, total beat-down."

Schick, 25, who grew up in Texas and Louisiana and now lives in Gretna, is one of the 10 injured veterans featured in an HBO film, "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq," that airs tonight. The title of the documentary, produced by "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, refers to the date that the injured narrowly escape death and realize that they are still alive.

The brutal flip side is that minus arms, legs, fingers, ears, eyes, faces or mental capacity, an "Alive Day" also marks the date that a life changes unalterably, when basic human functions become torturous, often demeaning challenges and when the world defines you by your missing parts.

"When I went over there, this wasn't even an issue," Schick said recently, glancing at his battered body. "I was totally prepared to die. I wasn't prepared to come back learning how to walk, 46 surgeries, 23 blood transfusions. I went from being one of the elite, the best of the best, to not even being able to go to the bathroom by myself."

Equally unexpected was having to contend with the maddening complexities of insurance claims, veterans' hospitals and a federal health care bureaucracy that makes Schick yearn for the clarity of the battlefield.

A thick-chested former high school football noseguard whose swagger appears undiminished by the explosion, Schick said he knew early on that the U.S. Marine Corps was his calling. At 18, he presented himself to the local recruiter in Coppell, Texas, a Dallas suburb, and signed up.

"I want to be on the front," Schick told the recruiter.

By the summer of 2004, he was in Iraq's deadly al Anbar province leading a "React Team" charged with checking suspicious activity in the vicinity of an ammunition dump. Insurgents had discovered that burying improvised explosive devices in the roads was an effective guerrilla tactic against a better-armed and better-trained U.S. fighting force.

Fateful decision

On Sept. 20, 32 days after he arrived, Schick was roused from sleep and ordered to deploy his team immediately. His friend David Woods hopped in the driver's seat of the lead Humvee. Schick ordered him to move over.

"I don't know why. It felt like I needed to drive. We were in a big hurry," Schick said. "Most of these guys drive like grannies, white-knuckling it waiting for an IED (improvised explosive device) to go off."

It was a fateful decision, but not his only one. He also decided to wear the protective goggles that always fogged up and the bothersome neck guard that he usually let flap in the wind. He gunned the Humvee's engine, driving with one hand and working the radio with the other.

He never heard the explosion.

An anti-tank mine had been buried in the soft sand. The driver's side tire triggered it. The bomb ripped open the floor of the vehicle, launched the steering wheel into Schick's chest and catapulted him to the side of the road.

His "Alive Day" had begun.

Face-down in the sand, he tried to pull himself up to check on his men. He couldn't move. His chest had collapsed, and he struggled to breathe. Shrapnel protruded from his face and neck guard. His limbs were a bloody, mangled mess.

"Schick! Schick!" he heard Woods calling out. Then he heard his friend toss aside his Marine bravado and cry out, "Jacob!"

"That freakin' crushed me. I know he thinks I'm dead," Schick said.

Assessing the damage

He spent the next hour looking for clues about how bad he was. He recalls lifting his arm and seeing daylight through the exposed muscle and bone. He saw his right foot "flopping around." Worse, though, was the reaction of the soldier on the helicopter ride to Al-Asad Airbase.

"This dude wouldn't even look at me," Schick said. "I think they were honestly just waiting, waiting for me to stop (living). I know I was close."

Through the end of August, 3,792 Americans were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 27,004 were wounded. Owing largely to better medical care, protective equipment and speedier evacuations, more soldiers are surviving their injuries than ever before. In World War II, the rate was 62 percent. In Vietnam, 73 percent. Today, it is 88 percent.

The higher rate of injuries, however, has put a strain on the military health care system.

In anticipation of his son's return, Schick's father, Woody Schick, checked out Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and was appalled. More than two years before the media would expose the poor care, mold and cockroaches, Schick's father told him, "You will not go to Walter Reed."

Instead, Schick was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he would spend the next 18 months undergoing surgery after surgery. The doctors amputated his right leg and fit him with a carbon-fiber prosthetic. He had it emblazoned with the Marine Corps seal. They removed skin from other parts of his body to patch his left arm and leg.

Putting on a brave face

Throughout, Schick tried to maintain a brave demeanor. He refused to accept his Purple Heart until the rest of his comrades returned from combat. In an Internet posting, he taunted the Iraqi insurgents, calling them "cowards."

The facade crumbled the day he fell out of his wheelchair. He had momentarily forgotten he didn't have a right leg.

"I held his head in my lap, and he cried for 45 minutes," said his mother, Debby. "I said, 'Let it out. Let it out.'€"

Thom Wilborn of the Disabled Americans Veterans says the "signature injury" of those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is emotional. Some 40 percent, he said, show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said he has ramped up mental health services since being appointed in 2005. He said every veteran who arrives at a VA facility is screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Still, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that four out of five veterans deemed to be at risk for PTSD were not referred for further evaluation or help and that the VA had spent only $1 out of every $3 it had budgeted for mental health services.

Backlog of patients

Schick views therapists warily and has put off counseling. His anger is never far from the surface. He has learned to shrug off the stares from children who think he is a robot or a pirate. It irks him, though, when adults do it.

"Ask me," he said. "Just ask me."

What makes him angriest, though, are the administrative hassles involved with his health care. Even getting officially designated "disabled" proved time-consuming as the VA faced a backlog of 650,000 claims.

"It took me two or three days to sign up for the Marine Corps," Schick said. "It took me a year and five months to get a compensation check. You do the math."

The VA is often touted for the quality of its medical care, but Schick loathes the thought of walking through the front doors.

"No matter what, we have to wait an hour and a half, guaranteed," he said. "Then you see these doctors who are 190 years old, and you have to repeat everything you say."

The VA's Nicholson defended the system, saying it is doing "a world-class job" treating more than 1 million patients a week.

"The American people can be proud of the job we are doing," he said.

Finding a new mission

Dealing with veterans' health insurance was another unexpected obstacle Schick has encountered. Not long ago, he was treated at West Jefferson Medical Center for a tear to a skin graft on his left leg. The bill was $16,000. TRICARE, the insurance program, took so long to pay that it showed up as a debt on his credit report.

Literally adding insult to injury, Schick said his medical status will be reviewed by the military every five years.

"I guess they want to see if my leg grew back," he said.

Despite it all, Schick remains loyal to the Marine Corps. He misses the camaraderie, the brotherhood. He said he would go back and fight if he could. But he sees his fight on the home front now, drawing attention to the way injured veterans are treated when they return from the war zone. He wants to see the nation provide the same commitment to injured veterans that he gave to the nation.

"I didn't do this to get a pat on the back," Schick said. "I did it to do my part. And I did my part."

Bill Walsh can be reached at bill.walsh@newhouse.com  or (202) 383-7817.

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Larry Scott  --