An Army UH-60 helicopter like those used in Korea and all around the worldIt was winter in Korea 1992 and, like an episode of MASH, it was a cold one. I was stationed on a small base that had army aviation assets and artillery assets. We shared a troop medical clinic that took care of all the troops on base about 2000 or so. We had two docs on base. I was assigned to a military unit, the aviation brigade and took care of pilots, while the other doc was assigned to the medical command and wore a second hat as artillery doc. Not that it mattered, we all took care of all the soldiers to support the Army mission. We shared weekend call and saw anyone who needed to be seen at anytime.
One Saturday I was called to see a soldier complaining of severe foot pain. He was brought in from the field where the Artillery was out on maneuvers. Upon examining him it was obvious to both of us that he had a cold injury.
He didn't want to come in from the field as that was seen as a serious sign of weakness by soldiers, but the kid couldn't feel his feet.
He still has pulses and had no definitive skin changes but his pain and numbness and mild circulation changes persisted well after warming and we would find out later, persisted for months.
It was the tip of the iceberg. I saw ten more soldiers that day with varying degrees of cold injury.
No frank frostbite, yet. But what was coming? I made some calls to the medical command, but who I really needed to talk to was the unit command. Were they aware? What was being dome to prevent this? What were the options to protect these injured soldiers?
Well I guess I hadn't truly realized what kind of trouble I was opening up. Commanders are responsible for the health of their command so I was actually indirectly making accusations against the command of soldier abuse and it runs all the way up to the Head guy of the unit its called accountability and the army preaches it.
It runs up AND down a command from top to bottom.
Well the story emerging from these injured artillery types was clear. They were all from one company and their young company commander had made some decisions to try to get a jump on the mission that was given because he was being graded, and that grade went on his officer evaluation and that evaluation decides when and if he gets promoted.
So he decided not to set up camp because he wanted to be mobile, to react to the fire missions sent his way. He didn't want to set up tents and stoves because they slowed him down so the troops slept in their tracked artillery.
Well they don't have proper heat, they don't have food and water and troops in the field need warming periods and feeding periods. This wasn't war it was peacetime and training injuries are hard to justify.
Well the crap hit the fan.
I walked into the troop clinic the next morning on a Sunday and into a full house. "Damn" I remember thinking, "a party at my clinic and I was not invited?"
A Colonel was seeing soldiers. The same soldiers I saw the day before. I was perplexed.
Until I saw the medical records.
The doctor seeing my soldiers was the division surgeon, and he was systematically downgrading all those injuries to non-reportable milder forms of cold injury.
He then proceeded, after introductions ( I had been in country 6 months and had never met this man, as he was NOT in my chain of command nor was he of any use to anyone ) to lecture me on cold injury.
He was attempting to justify his actions.
It was clear that he had bowed to pressure from the artillery higher command to cover up
what was going on.
One Saturday I was called to see a soldier complaining of severe foot pain. He was brought in from the field where the Artillery was out on maneuvers. Upon examining him it was obvious to both of us that he had a cold injury.
He didn't want to come in from the field as that was seen as a serious sign of weakness by soldiers, but the kid couldn't feel his feet.
He still has pulses and had no definitive skin changes but his pain and numbness and mild circulation changes persisted well after warming and we would find out later, persisted for months.
It was the tip of the iceberg. I saw ten more soldiers that day with varying degrees of cold injury.
No frank frostbite, yet. But what was coming? I made some calls to the medical command, but who I really needed to talk to was the unit command. Were they aware? What was being dome to prevent this? What were the options to protect these injured soldiers?
Well I guess I hadn't truly realized what kind of trouble I was opening up. Commanders are responsible for the health of their command so I was actually indirectly making accusations against the command of soldier abuse and it runs all the way up to the Head guy of the unit its called accountability and the army preaches it.
It runs up AND down a command from top to bottom.
Well the story emerging from these injured artillery types was clear. They were all from one company and their young company commander had made some decisions to try to get a jump on the mission that was given because he was being graded, and that grade went on his officer evaluation and that evaluation decides when and if he gets promoted.
So he decided not to set up camp because he wanted to be mobile, to react to the fire missions sent his way. He didn't want to set up tents and stoves because they slowed him down so the troops slept in their tracked artillery.
Well they don't have proper heat, they don't have food and water and troops in the field need warming periods and feeding periods. This wasn't war it was peacetime and training injuries are hard to justify.
Well the crap hit the fan.
I walked into the troop clinic the next morning on a Sunday and into a full house. "Damn" I remember thinking, "a party at my clinic and I was not invited?"
A Colonel was seeing soldiers. The same soldiers I saw the day before. I was perplexed.
Until I saw the medical records.
The doctor seeing my soldiers was the division surgeon, and he was systematically downgrading all those injuries to non-reportable milder forms of cold injury.
He then proceeded, after introductions ( I had been in country 6 months and had never met this man, as he was NOT in my chain of command nor was he of any use to anyone ) to lecture me on cold injury.
He was attempting to justify his actions.
It was clear that he had bowed to pressure from the artillery higher command to cover up
what was going on.
And in the process he was hanging my ass out in the wind.
It was like an episode of MASH all right, The Valiant doctors fighting the army machine fighting for what was right, except the idealistic Hawkeye Pierce didn't win this one.
I was outgunned on this one. This man was three ranks above me but I told him what I thought of his actions that day.
I guess I just assumed that he would be subjective on his medical evaluations of those injured soldiers and do the right thing to protect them from a company commander that was more concerned about being promoted than taking care of his men.
I guess I learned the real army way. Discipline and rules tend to flow DOWNSTREAM, upstream...not so much.
He knew and I knew that he had no real influence over me as I was not in his chain of command.
Although he was charged with evaluating my medical performance at the end of the year.
He gave me a glowing evaluation. Guilt I suppose.
If you are reading this Col. Boehm, kiss my butt!
It was like an episode of MASH all right, The Valiant doctors fighting the army machine fighting for what was right, except the idealistic Hawkeye Pierce didn't win this one.
I was outgunned on this one. This man was three ranks above me but I told him what I thought of his actions that day.
I guess I just assumed that he would be subjective on his medical evaluations of those injured soldiers and do the right thing to protect them from a company commander that was more concerned about being promoted than taking care of his men.
I guess I learned the real army way. Discipline and rules tend to flow DOWNSTREAM, upstream...not so much.
He knew and I knew that he had no real influence over me as I was not in his chain of command.
Although he was charged with evaluating my medical performance at the end of the year.
He gave me a glowing evaluation. Guilt I suppose.
If you are reading this Col. Boehm, kiss my butt!
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