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hollowdweller

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Sep 22, 2003
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I thought this was interesting:

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.

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2006020623?pt=0

Maybe one of our military members can say if this kind of stuff is true?
 
Back when I was in the AF, I heard of people's seperation being held up for similar reasons. It's not outside the lunacy of some REMF to bust a guy's stones over Gov't property, WIA or not.
That said, the guy that initiated this action should serve the rest of his career
scrubbing the tables of the nearest mortuary/graves registration unit.
DaddyDett
 
hollowdweller said:
I thought this was interesting:

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.

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2006020623?pt=0

Maybe one of our military members can say if this kind of stuff is true?
Click to expand...


Sounds like a royal screwup. Would they make the guys who had to ditch the F16 after hitting a bird, pay the $15M?
 
I can see it happening. The people (mostly civilians) who issue our gear are notoriously anal retentive.
 
Little new under the sun. My Stepdad was wounded outside his tank in late 1944 by a mortar round - big chunk oif his heel blown off. He was evac'd, leaving all his kit behind on the tank. When he was demob'd back in Canada, he was billed for all his equipment (canteen, 1; spoon, 1 . . .). Being broke after three years in the army, he couldn't pay. No problem, mate, we'll just take it from your wound allowance.

Can't you see Legionary Cassius Sixtus being given #%@($ over a missing shield boss?
 
And yet...

The U.S.-run administration in Baghdad failed to keep track of nearly $9 billion of money it transferred to various Iraqi ministries, according to an official audit released Sunday.

The report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says that the now defunct U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) did not exercise adequate managerial control over funds paid to Iraqi government ministries, which employ hundreds of experts from the United States.

This resulted in potentially widespread corruption, including paying salaries to "ghost" employees, and led to the eventual disappearance of $8.8 billion between early 2003 and mid-2004.

You'd think if they could charge a poor guy for his gear that they would be as concerned about the big money too.:thumbdn:
 
OK, I'm not in any way trying to claim that this situation with the veteran and his missing body armor isn't messed up, because it is. BUT, I don't agree that the money squandered by the CPA really figures into this story. The CPA isn't the military, and their problems are not the military's problems. Both answer to the federal government, but they are two seperate organizations.

Likewise, the military's policy of holding soldiers accountable for their issued gear isn't something that the federal government (any branch) is directly responsible for. It's a military policy and it's been in place as long as there has been an Army. Each individual soldier is held accountable for the gear that he or she is issued, because that's the way it needs to be. Otherwise, no one takes care of their stuff and it is either lost or unusable when it's needed most. This LT should be able to get this problem straightened out. He'll have to get the necessary paperwork signed off on by the appropriate authorities probably his commander, but I consider it unlikely that he'll have to pay for the body armor. This article only presents one side of the story, in the most negative possible light. Soldiers need to outprocess, and they need to turn in their issued gear, and they need to provide a reason if they don't have all of their gear. It happens all of the time. I wish him the best, but I also think this article was written to be deliberately inflammatory by not providing all of the facts or perspectives.
 
"they"??????????????

Just people acting like people do - wise, stupid, stubborn, silly, honest, dishonest, lazy, etc.


RR has it right. Many have read the accounts of the Army of the Patomic marching into battle - leaving a thick trail of blankets, great coats, and backpacks behind them. Civilians would collect them and sell them back to the troops or the Army as salvage.

Just another example of how OPM gets treated by many folks - Congress being the prime current example.

(Trouble is, today, people are scarcely more careful with thier own money. Anyone notice that we now have a national negative personal savings rate?)
 
I wasn,t allowed to muster out over a 30 dollar knife ! I almost missed my plane home because of it . I went and bought a knife at the P:X: and turned it in and was mustered out without being asked to turn in the rest of my gear worth considerably more than the knife . An army may march on its stomach . That isn,t to say that some people can,t sit on their brains .It is tough that a wounded man may be accosted so when he is least able to defend himself . Let us hope that benefit of the doubt will eventually come into play here .
 
hollowdweller said:
Do you think that is because people are less responsible with their money now? Or do you think it is because they earn less?
Click to expand...

Entire stores are full of goods that did not exist when I turned 21. Are they necessary? No! But people spend $billions of such adult toys. (Me too! :o )
 
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