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Senator Bond on personality disorder discharges

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On Friday we talked with investigative reporter Joshua Kors about allegations that US military doctors have been deliberately misdiagnosing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to deny them expensive medical benefits. On today’s show Marco Werman speaks with Senator Kit Bond (R-MO), who has been campaigning against personality disorder discharges.

• Senator Bond’s Senate page
• Listen to Marco’s interview with Joshua Kors
• Joshua Kors articles on personality disorder discharges
• US Department of Veterans Affairs

Read the Transcript
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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  This is despicable.  That’s what one of our listeners wrote in response to an interview we ran Friday with journalist Joshua Kors.  Kors has written a series of articles for the Nation magazine about war veterans who are refused health and other benefits by the Pentagon because they received personality disorder discharges.  That means that according to military doctors, these vets are suffering from a pre-existing condition and not from combat related ailments as the vets claim.  How could anyone do that to a fellow service man or woman, wrote another listener.  But there was skepticism as well.  One listener questioned the premise that some veterans are denied long term health benefits.  She says her husband is a veteran who received treatment for cancer at a VA hospital 20 years after his enlistment ended.  That’s a different scenario than those we discussed with the Nation’s Joshua Kors.  Service men and women given a personality disorder discharge do not usually receive long term medical care from the government.  That’s what happened to the man we talked about last week, Sergeant Chuck Luther.  In May 2007 Luther was blown out of his check point in Iraq by an insurgent mortar bomb.  His head slammed into the concrete floor.  Dazed but unbloodied, the Sergeant returned to his post.  What he didn’t know was that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI.  Only later did the decorate veteran seek medical assistance for the piercing pain in his head and shoulder and for partial blindness and deafness.  He was accused of faking it.  Luther objected and what happened next seems beyond belief.  He was confined for a month and deprived of sleep.  Under such duress he eventually agreed to sign whatever was needed to get out.  What he signed was a personality disorder discharge, depriving him of any benefits for his 12 years of service.  Senator Kit Bond of Missouri has campaigned against such discharges.  Senator Bond you’re a Republican, your son served multiple tours in Iraq, how do you react to stories like that of Sergeant Luther’s?

SENATOR KIT BOND:  That’s an outrage and we are very, very concerned about it.  Sergeant Luther is, and his treatment is just one of the examples of how the personality discharge has been used and abused.  We’ve been fighting this, we’ve been working with veterans’ advocates and veterans for many years and they brought this to us really in 2007 when we found out the scope of the problem.

WERMAN: And what has Congress done since then to help soldiers in Sgt. Luther’s position?

SENATOR BOND: I have been pushing for legislation to change the approach.  Then Senator Obama was one of my co-sponsors along with Senators Boxer and Lieberman.  We made some progress in pushing for the honor act that takes care of injured soldiers.  We got one thing included in the fiscal year 2008 Defense Authorization Bill that mandate safeguards on personality disorder discharges and a high level review of cases before service members can be discharged.  As I understand it, Sgt. Luther’s case is now going through that review and we think that we have to stop the too easy get rid of a problem by identifying a personality disorder and claiming that it was pre-existing and dumping out the soldier or Marine who has been severely injured.  It may be invisible injuries, but severely injured in war and they should be treated as heroes, given appropriate service, and not discharged losing all their veterans benefits.

WERMAN: So Senator Bond is this new law that encourages soldiers to seek a review of their medical records and providing counseling, is that enough?

SENATOR BOND: Well that’s an important start.  I have contacted President Obama a number of times.  He said well they’re working on it and while the Pentagon has told us they’ve moved away from this kind of discharge and put safeguards in place, but I’m from Missouri, the show me state.  In other words, I’m going to continue to check and ensure that the Pentagon is living up to its promises.

WERMAN: Senator I understand all of this helps, but what makes me, and I’m sure a lot of our listeners scratch our heads, is the recent health care bill that got passed.  Whether one agrees with it or not, now prevents insurance companies from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions, yet this loophole exists whereby the government itself can deny benefits for soldiers damaged in defense of their country.  In other words, they are denying people like Sgt. Luther benefits because of pre-existing conditions.  How can that be?

SENATOR BOND: That’s hypocrisy at its highest level.

WERMAN: How can you change that?

SENATOR BOND: That’s absolute hypocrisy.

WERMAN: So doesn’t Congress need to change that hypocrisy?

SENATOR BOND: Well I felt there were many problems in the health care bill, so we were shut out.  We didn’t have an opportunity to work on it, but that’s certainly something that needs to be addressed and I’m hoping that many of the flaws in the military system will be addressed.  We’re continuing to work on this on all fronts and pursuing legislation, direct appeals to the military, I continue to appeal to the President to get him to talk about changing the Defense Department standards that say personality discharge means no benefits.  That does, that is highly hypocritical.

WERMAN: It not only means no benefits, in practical terms it’s just this discharge paper means employers look at Sgt. Luther, for example, and say this guy is crazy let’s move on to the next applicant.  Sgt. Luther just wants to work.

SENATOR BOND: I know and in some cases they go and demand back the reenlistment bonuses.  The Defense Department actually goes back and demands their money back.  Now how much more outrageous can you get?

WERMAN: Obviously the Defense Department needs to protect itself and tax payers against fraudulent claims.  How do you balance that?

SENATOR BOND: Well this is not a fraudulent claim.  That’s why we need more mental health professionals, we need review.

WERMAN: I understand that.

SENATOR BOND: To me, pre-existing conditions, the way they screen our volunteers to go in and I know something about how the volunteers are screened.  All volunteers who want to serve their country, they check them before they go in.  If they don’t find a personality disorder then, and they come back from the battle field after being in combat and they have some problems, I think the overwhelming conclusion, if not an irrefutable presumption is that they suffered the injury as a result of their service.  They should not, they should have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove that it was pre-existing rather than assume it was pre-existing.

WERMAN: Senator Bond I understand that vets and soldiers who hear this interview may actually contact you and your office on the Hill.

SENATOR BOND: You know the best thing they could do?  We’re hearing from people all over, but I would ask them to contact their Senators and the Congressman who represents them because we need to have more members of Congress.  And most important, write the President.  He joined me in these earlier issues and we need to get his attention refocused on this.  Because he can provide the leadership right now.  Many people in Congress only do what he tells them to do and he needs to tell them.

WERMAN: Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, thanks very much for your time sir.

SENATOR BOND: Thank you sir.

WERMAN: By the way, you can hear our interview with the Nation’s Joshua Kors about personality disorder discharges at the world dot org.  We’ve also asked the Pentagon for comment on the story, but none has been offered.

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