ProgressOhio

Like many folks here in the Midwest, I've been among those to complain about this summers' oppressive heat. But with plenty of running water and enough electricity to power the air conditioner, life is more than bearable. So even though stepping outside is more like a trip the sauna, this summer has brought us the usual amusements and diversions. From the Fourth of July fireworks and family outings to chemically-enhanced ball players, crappy summer movies and drunken celebrity joyrides it's been pretty much of an All-American summer.

Speaking of All-American summer pastimes, the Congress has left Washington on its annual August recess, ostensibly to press the fresh of local constituents and escape the interminable heat of Foggy Bottom. Following the lead of its American counterpart, the Iraqi Parliament decided it was time to escape of the summer heat of Baghdad. Under any normal scenario, these two events would not be cause for universal alarm. Only the summer of 2007 is not normal by any stretch of the imagination.

Leading up to the grand legislative exit, the situation in Iraq has gone from bad to disastrous. This despite the recent Administration pronouncements that the war on Iraq is being won and life for the Iraqi people is steadily improving.

While the average Iraqi citizen swelters in the desert heat, the country's electrical service grid is near collapse leaving many water purification plants and sewage treatment facilities without power. As a result, supplies of drinkable water have nearly dried up and much of Baghdad has been without fresh water for almost two weeks. Sectarian killings are said to be at an all-time high and there are reports of nearly 4 million Iraqis experiencing food shortages. According to OXFAM, 2 million Iraqis have fled the country and an estimated 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes setting the stage for monumental humanitarian crisis.

I wonder how members of Congress chose Baghdad as a summer vacation destination - without a contingent of heavily armed troops, full body armor, water and plenty of combat air cover.

In a recent Tacoma News Tribune report, the Army's Physical Evaluation Board - PEB - has allegedly been using undocumented criteria for rating a soldier's fitness for duty. Army lawyers representing wounded soldiers, say they are forced to navigate the Board's bureaucracy "even though the new guidelines have yet to be published."

The Office of Soldier's Legal Counsel claims that the PEB is utilizing what has become known as the "Wal Mart greeter test" to evaluate a brain-injured a soldiers level of disability.

According to The News Tribune, senior Army civilian attorney Benedict S. Cohen "reported, staff members alleged that the PEB "routinely" misapplies Army regulations and Department of Defense instructions "to evade reaching the 30 percent disability threshold that triggers a soldier's eligibility" for medical retirement and benefits"
Cohen "raised concerns about a possible "Wal-Mart greeter test" in determining whether soldiers are well enough to be denied benefits. It was claimed that PEBs employed a 'Wal-Mart greeter' test, whereby if an injured soldier could function as a Wal-Mart greeter he or she would receive a rating of 0 percent disability, as opposed to the outcome mandated" by Army and Defense Department regulations, Cohen wrote."

The Department of Defense seems to have the same disregard for honest, hard-working Wal Mart greeters as it does for wounded soldiers and remains tied to the "Rumsfeld Model" of war on-the-cheap.

If seasoned attorneys struggle with disability rating systems, imagine how difficult, no impossible, the process must be for a soldier suffering from a traumatic brain injury.

Sadly, measuring the true cost of the Iraq debacle is not limited to dollars and cents. The human cost of this tragic war is beyond measure with over 3,300 American troops and an estimated 650,000 Iraqi civilians killed. Estimates of American wounded range between 26,000 and 50,000, the higher number reflecting potential cases of post traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury that may have escaped diagnosis.

The alleged practice of low-balling the disability ratings of soldiers and veterans was raised at a recent joint House and Senate hearing on the disability ratings practices of the Defense Department and the VA. Senior Secretaries of both departments categorically rejected any claim that soldiers and veterans were being denied needed care and benefits. But the evidence piling up over the last several months - at Walter Reed, Fort Lewis and other yet-to-be-disclosed locations, would seems to belie their impassioned denials.

In the meantime, Bush and Cheney keep trying to lead us all down the yellow brick road of a delusional and hopeless foreign policy. Tragically, brave men and women find themselves unable to simply click their ruby slippers together and find their way home.