This is simply outrageous! This country pisses away billions of dollars and they cannot let a piece of body armor go missing, even after they guy was seriously wounded in battle?
On a similar note, I was drilling in Oklahoma one weekend and we were doing NBC drills. During a break, all my MOPP gear was on the deck around me, just like everyone else, and my gas mask went missing. I went to my unit leader and explained that it was there one second and not there the next. Some asshat took it. Nothing was done, no investigation, no one questioned, nothing, and they expected me to pay for it. I can see where being responsible for gear could curtail some shenanigans but at least help a guy look into it first.
Soldier pays for armor
Army demanded $700 from city man who was wounded
Eric Eyre
February 07, 2006
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 Rebrooks 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.
Rebrooks 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.
"Its 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 Rebrooks 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 didnt want to leave the Army. He said the "medical separation" discharge was the Armys 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 heres 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.
"Its a combat loss," he said. "It shouldnt be a cost passed on to the soldier. If a soldiers stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldnt 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 hed have to supply statements from witnesses to verify the body armor was taken from him and burned.
"Theres a complete lack of empathy from senior officers who dont know what its like to be a combat soldier on the ground," Rebrook said. "Theres a whole lot of people who dont want to help you. Theyre 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 its like to hurt people," Rebrook said. "But now Id like to help people."
To contact staff writer Eric Eyre, use e-mail or call 348-4869.
:: Article nr. 20399 sent on 08-feb-2006 04:41 ECT
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