DoD Allowing More Wounded Troops to Remain on Duty
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2004 -- The Defense Department has long been a leader in
providing employment opportunities to people with disabilities -- but it's
taken a major step forward by allowing disabled veterans to remain in the
military if they want to and can continue to perform, DoD's disability program
manager said here Oct. 13.
As DoD observes National Disability Employment Month, this year's theme,
"You're Hired! Success Knows No Limitations!" takes on particular relevance for
servicemembers wounded during the war on terror, Judy Gilliom said during an
interview with the Pentagon Channel.
Gilliom said servicemembers with disabling injuries used to be automatically
turned over to the Department of Veterans Affairs. If they returned to the
Defense Department, it was generally after being medically retired, then hired
as civilian employees.
"Now there is much more interest at the very highest levels in keeping anyone
who wants to remain in the service as an active-duty member," she said. "And
there are some very striking examples of how that has been done."
"With advances in medicine, technology and rehabilitation techniques, we are
making every attempt to return willing service members back to duty," said
Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David S. C. Chu. "We are
increasing that capability with advances in amputee care, new prosthetic
devices, and the new Advanced Amputee Training Center established at Walter
Reed (Army Medical Center in Washington)."
President Bush shared this new vision last December during a visit to wounded
troops at Walter Reed. "Americans would be surprised to learn that a grievous
injury, such as the loss of a limb, no longer means forced discharge," the
president told the soldiers.
"In other words, the medical care is so good and the recovery process is so
technologically advanced, that people are no longer forced out of the
military," Bush said. "When we're talking about forced discharge, we're talking
about another age and another army. This is a new age, and this is a new army.
Today, if wounded servicemembers want to remain in uniform and can do the job,
the military tries to help them stay."
Marine Corps Sgt. Chris Chandler is an example of that new age and new
military. Three months into his deployment to Afghanistan in 2001, Chandler
stepped on a landmine, which blew off his left foot and lower leg.
But the 23-year-old Marine said he never entertained the idea of a medical
retirement. "I never considered it for a second," he told a reporter from The
Bayonet newspaper at Fort Benning, Ga. "Before I could even start to feel sorry
for myself, there were people who'd lost their legs who came to talk to me and
tell me I could do it."
Last December, Chandler proved them right, becoming the first servicemember
with a prosthetic limb to graduate from the Army's Airborne School at Fort
Benning.
Another example is Air Force Lt. Col. Andrew Lourake, who injured his left leg
during a 1998 motocross bike accident and ultimately had to have it amputated.
Lourake, now fitted with a computerized artificial limb, was cleared last
summer to return to flight status and will soon be back in the pilot's seat.
"(This will set a) great precedent for the Air Force," Air Force Brig. Gen.
Scott Gray, 89th Airlift Wing commander, told a reporter for the Capital Flyer
newspaper at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. "It shows how well the Air Force takes
care of their own and how far technology has come to enable this to happen."
Chu called the spirit of these and other wounded servicemembers intent on
remaining in the military "an enormous tribute to America's all-volunteer
force."
Gilliom said examples like these -- once almost unheard of -- are occurring
with increasing frequency as the military looks beyond traditional conceived
notions about what disabled servicemembers can and can't do.
"If you can do it, you can do it," she said. "It's important to let people
achieve whatever potential they have to perform."
That, she said, is the whole idea behind the theme to this year's National
Disability Employment Month: Success Knows No Limitations!
"There's a lot of interest in being sure that we facilitate that process and
help people do what they want to do to adjust to any injury they may have
acquired in the course of the global war on terror," she said.
Biography:
Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness David S. C. Chu
Air Force Brig. Gen. Scott
Gray, 89th Airlift Wing Commander
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