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Sep-25-2008 » Filed Under: 4/2 SBCT

Seattle Weekly has a long profile of former 4/2 SBCT solider Mike Siegel, who was injured in Iraq. Excerpt:

Shortly after the incident, the Army transported him back to Fort Lewis, where on May 28 he became one of approximately 20,000 Iraq War veterans so far to receive a Purple Heart.

Less than a month later, Siegel was escorted off the same Army base and instructed to sign a document stipulating that he could not return. He had been kicked out—or in military parlance, "administratively separated"—due to a urinalysis that revealed the presence of cocaine. As a result, he lost a host of benefits he might have otherwise received, including military-provided health care, disability pay, and eligibility for the GI Bill.

Siegel is one of numerous combat veterans being penalized after turning to drugs and alcohol or acting out in other ways. The Army and Navy discharged 3,300 people for drug use alone in the 2007 fiscal year (which ended September 2007) . (The two military branches did not supply figures for how many of those people had served in Iraq or Afghanistan.) Fort Lewis released nearly 200 soldiers for drug use in the first 10 months of the 2008 fiscal year—almost twice the number that it did in 2003, the year the Iraq War began.

Thanks to Dan for the link.


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