MEDEVAC VI - Return to Duty

Sunday 16 September
2000

After a month of convalescent leave, I have returned to duty in Kuwait. The month off was a surprise (I had expected a couple of weeks), but as it turned out I needed that time to get back in shape – the surgery took more out of me than I had expected. It was also a wonderful time to see my family. In addition to getting to spend time with my kids, the month coincided with a number of important family events that I would have missed otherwise.

I got to be with my mother and her husband for their 25th wedding anniversary celebration, which was very special. My sisters planned a very nice evening for them.

I got to help my oldest daughter as she moved and settled into her first year of college. I got to be there for my son’s 17th birthday. I got to see my youngest daughter play in her first high school football game as a member of the marching band.

As far as my convalescence, it seemed like I spent the first few days in bed mostly sleeping. I couldn’t get around very well, and every time I stretched my legs it felt as though I was tearing scar tissue loose inside, and then it had to heal all over again. But I kept up with stretching and walking, and by the third week there was very little pain left at all. I even took a ten mile hike out at Island Lake Recreation Area – one of the hikes I used to take the Boy Scouts on for Hiking Merit Badge. Sixteen of my seventeen incisions healed perfectly, but one of them got infected and required a lot more attention. I tried antibiotic ointment as well as hydrogen peroxide, and kept it covered with band-aids. When it didn’t seem to be getting better I called the surgeon, and he said just to wash it regularly with soap and hot water and leave it exposed to the air, and it would heal. That’s what I did, and it is healing fine, just like any other surface cut or scrape.

The month was over much too quickly, but time doesn’t wait and I had to leave. I flew back to Fort Benning and began the process of getting back to duty.

The entire process of clearing the medical unit and getting sent back here was like a chapter straight out of “Catch-22”. As impressive as the medical evacuation and treatment process was, the administrative side was pretty disappointing. They are just not set up to send a person back to theater – the assumption (and default disposition at every step) is that you will be released from active duty and sent home. I had to fight tooth and nail at every step (and read every piece of paper very carefully) to ensure that I got returned to duty instead of simply released back into the reserves. In many cases people simply didn’t know what to do. In some cases the forms they used didn’t even have options on them to check off or fill out for “Return to Duty”. I kept getting bad information, or being bounced back and forth between different offices and activities. They simply didn’t know what to do with me or how to process me to get me back to my unit.

Frankly, I think it is disgraceful. With the Army paying huge recruiting and retention bonuses because they are having a hard time getting people, you would think that the medical system would be a bit more oriented towards returning people to duty after they are injured or require medical treatment. But it doesn’t work that way at all. I was swimming upstream the entire time, and wasn’t even sure until nearly the last minute that I was even going to get orders to come back.

The first challenge was clearing the medical hold unit (WTB). That took a full day of running around to appointments, and bouncing back and forth when people didn’t provide the right forms (or didn’t properly complete the forms they did have). At least twice in this process I corrected entries on forms that said “REFRAD” (Release From Active Duty) and made them change them to “RTD” (Return to Duty). But I managed to get medically cleared in one day (Wednesday), which was kind of amazing. Once I was pronounced “fit for duty”, I was transferred to the 641st MTC (Mobilization Troop Command) to remobilize. That required me to physically move to new living quarters and get back into their system.

At first they weren’t sure what to do with me. Then they decided I had to go through the whole mobilization process again (just like last fall). That didn’t make any sense to me, and I said so. How can I talk to people about my will and my family care plan when it’s all on file in Kuwait? What is the point of going through the whole process when it’s already been done and I’m in the system? But that’s what they wanted me to do – it would have taken *days*. Finally I talked to the right people and they agreed that it was silly and unnecessary. I had to go down to the medical center (a different one than the hospital) and go through a medical review, but that was all. I did that on Thursday morning, got updated on one immunization and a hearing test (which I almost failed because I kept falling asleep!), and then was pronounced medically qualified to deploy.

The next challenge was getting orders. Nobody knew what to do to get me orders to get on a plane, or who was supposed to publish them. It was not solved by COB on Thursday, and the flight was due to load baggage on Friday morning and depart Friday evening. Fortunately the S3 put me on the flight manifest anyway, figuring that we’d get it worked out.

The various agencies involved tossed it around all day Friday, asking people questions and consulting regulations and policies for most of the day. Finally they decided I didn’t need any new orders at all, since I was still on my original mobilization orders. So they just put me on the plane.
As much as I complain about the bureaucracy and silly Catch-22 stuff, that’s just the crap you have to put up with to be here. If you love the Army, you just deal with that nonsense and look for the good stuff. Being at Fort Benning reminded me of that quite dramatically. One day I was walking between appointments and feeling ticked off about the stupidity of the system when a couple of Blackhawk helicopters flew low overhead. As I looked up to watch them go by I saw that the Airborne school was conducting parachute training dropping people off the familiar red and white towers that Fort Benning is famous for. As I watched that, I heard a burst of gunfire from the rifle ranges a couple of blocks away where troops were training, and I just thought to myself “God, I love being in the Army!” :-)

Later, I was talking about this with a colonel I ran into on the plane who I used to work with in Kuwait and who was on his way to Afghanistan. He had an interesting way to put it in perspective. He said it’s just like when you were a little kid and all you wanted to do was eat ice cream, but first you had to eat your beans. So you eat your beans, and pretty soon you get some ice cream. Not a bad way to look at it.

My advice to anyone who gets sucked into the maw of the medical treatment system but who wants to return to duty afterwards is to take charge of your own treatment and don’t just let the system work on its own. If I had relied on the system and just “let it work”, I’d still be waiting for surgery and definitely would have been sent home afterwards. Read the materials they give you, understand the system, be aggressive about getting appointments and getting answers to your questions, and don’t take “no” for an answer if you think you're getting the runaround. That’s the only way I made it back to my unit.

I left on Friday evening, and went through the familiar process of getting over here – waiting in lines, briefings, the "duffel bag drag", bus rides, plane rides, cramped seating, meals at odd times, etc. I finally made it back to Camp Arifjan on the early morning shuttle and got to my room at about 0830 on Sunday. I just dropped my bags and laid down for about an hour, it felt so good to actually lie in a bed. Then I cleaned up and slept most of the day. I had intended to stay awake and get back on local time, but I just couldn’t.

I got up about 1500 and unpacked, had a meal, and went a bought an internet access card. Now it’s about 2000, and I’m planning to try to get to sleep at a decent hour and get up in the morning and go to work. When they dropped off my keys and ID cards earlier they said “See you Tuesday”, but unless tomorrow is a holiday I don’t know about, I don’t see any reason to wait. I may be a bit tired and jet lagged but I’ll at least start to catch up on things that have happened since I left.

It was interesting to come back and see this place again. While I got some gratification from seeing things like working air conditioners and knowing that I had a positive impact while serving here over the past year, the overwhelming feeling that I got from the whole process was that I am a very small part of a very big operation. With my ego it’s not often that I feel insignificant, but I felt a sense of humility as I came back here on a plane with several hundred other people, to join the tens of thousands already over here doing their jobs.

I recall that Charles de Gaulle once made this point by saying that “the cemeteries of the world are filled with indispensable men”. While I may not be exactly indispensable, I do think I have some value to add, and I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.

Mood: Good
Music: Bach – Concertos for Oboe and Oboe D’amore