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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6458934/<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6458934/>

U.S. wounded find help lacking
By MIKE BARBER
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
USA - PRIEST RIVER, Idaho -- Some evenings as Joe and Jackie Davis cuddle up 
near the wood stove in their remote, rustic home to watch television, Jackie 
uses a needle to pluck slivers of Iraqi shrapnel that Joe's skin has cloaked 
in scar tissue and seems to pull to the surface.Davis, a Washington National 
Guardsman who turned 23 last week, was peppered head-to-foot by shrapnel by 
an Iraqi mortar round near Baghdad on Feb. 29. The explosion so badly 
shredded his legs that surgeons considered amputation. 

An hour down the road in Spokane, former Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Ian 
Anderson, also 23, who returned last year to near celebrity as one of 
Washington's first servicemen wounded in Iraq, has applied for welfare to pay 
his 2-year-old daughter's doctor bills.

On April. 6, 2003, Anderson was with an elite Marine reconnaissance unit 
spearheading the invasion of Iraq when an Iraqi ambush near Baghdad felled 
him, bullets piercing his knees, thigh and shoulder.

Today, when the nation honors those who have served their nation, Davis and 
Anderson are reminders that the fight for many veterans continues after they 
have left the battlefield. Their story is both fresh and old -- one that 
casualties of battles from Gettysburg to Hue could recognize.

The government for whom they shed their blood will help, but only after 
agonizing waits. There are too many Joe Davises and Ian Andersons, and the 
Department of Veterans Affairs has too few resources to help them all.

The VA says it's working to cut the backlog, but that's little immediate help 
for Anderson or Davis.

"For a lot of people in my situation, the problems didn't start in Iraq; they 
started when we got back home," Anderson says. "When they gave me the Purple 
Heart, I wanted to throw it back, not at the person who gave it to me -- I 
admired him. I was disgusted with my treatment."

Davis has not met Anderson but shares a painful, frustrating homecoming.

"The military left a real bitter taste in my mouth. I went to Iraq and with 
the intention of doing some good, but it seems like no one there wants us. 
What was it for?"

Anderson and Davis are among more than 250 Washingtonians wounded in action 
in Iraq since March 2003. More than 8,100 U.S. troops nationwide have been 
wounded in action in Iraq as of last week.

While public attention focuses on those killed in Iraq, the frustrating 
experiences of the wounded, physically and mentally, are often overlooked, 
says David Chasteen, board member of Operation Truth. The New York-based, 
non-profit, non-partisan group was created six months ago for veterans of the 
Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

U.S. casualties have swelled demands upon the Veterans Affairs Department 
serving troops who have left the service. The department serves 6 million to 
7 million veterans alone, with a backlog of 300,000-plus claims. Many wonder 
how it will handle so many. In August, an additional 150,000 National Guard 
and reservists became eligible for care and benefits. "The system needs help 
because it wasn't designed or prepared to handle this load. More than 40 
percent of all troops on the ground in Iraq are National Guard," says 
Chasteen, an Army chemical corps captain in Iraq from March to August 2003.

President Bush's 2005 budget, however, calls for cuts to the veterans 
department. Though Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are moved to the front of 
the line, the average hurry-up-and-wait time for veterans' claims to 
determine eligibility for health care, after spending months being processed 
out of the service, is 160 days, says Dave Autry, spokesman for the Disabled 
American Veterans. Many current problems occur during the handoff from the 
military to the veterans department, he said.

Laurel Scheiner, spokeswoman for Seattle's regional VA office covering the 
state, said "there's a really big push within the VA to reduce the backlog of 
claims to zero."

On the health care side, Jeri Rowe, spokeswoman for the VA's Puget Sound 
Health Care system, said Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are moved to the front 
of the line. The medical center participates in program allowing injured 
Southwest Asia war veterans two years of health care access while their 
disability claims are processed.

Consequently, "we have no problems with backlogs here at all," she said.

Nationwide, the military admits it was unprepared to handle so many wounded 
soldiers, taxing a system geared toward full-timers, and cobbled together 
temporary fixes.



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P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or 
mikebarber AT seattlepi.com