In a move of political gamesmanship, most of Colorado’s congressional staff members were booted from a meeting this week to discuss treatment for Fort Carson soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The staffers were banned from the Fort Carson meeting Tuesday with Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, and staff members for senators from Washington, D.C., who organized the trip.
Fort Carson has come under fire for its treatment of soldiers with PTSD, and the most shrill criticism has come from outside of Colorado. Nine senators singled out Fort Carson in a letter requesting the Government Accountability Office investigate the military’s treatment procedures.
Colorado’s delegation has been far more measured in its assessment of PTSD treatment at Fort Carson. While members of the state’s delegation say Fort Carson has challenges, they say the difficulties are similar at other military installations. Colorado’s delegation often points out that Fort Carson leads the Army in its 100 percent screening of soldiers for traumatic brain injury, leadership education programs and rescreening of soldiers for medical ailments before they are discharged from the Army.
“All of the Colorado-based congressional staffers were asked to not be part of the meeting,” said Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Rep. Mark Udall. “The reason that they got was that the meeting was for D.C. staff.”
James Pitchford, an aide who handles military matters for Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., requested the Colorado-based aides for Republicans Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Doug Lamborn and Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar, Udall, Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Rep. John Salazar leave the meeting, and they did. A member of Lamborn’s staff from Washington was allowed in the meeting.
Pacheco said the congressional aides were “pretty angry that day. It doesn’t matter if you’re D.C-based or Colorado-based, if you are handling military-affairs issues for a member of Congress, then you need to be part of any briefings that are going on. I don’t know why a staffer from another state can decide what Colorado staffers can do in their own state. It defies logic.”
The Colorado-based aides expect to meet next week with Maj. Gen. Robert Mixon, commander of Fort Carson.
Shana Marchio, a spokeswoman for Bond’s office, said: “My understanding is that the meeting with the general was a meeting just with the Washington, D.C., staff. That’s just how they decided to do it.
“Our main focus here is to ensure that the soldiers at Fort Carson and other bases around the country are receiving adequate care. This just so happens to be a meeting with Washington, D.C., staff,” she said. “… I haven’t talked to any staffer from any office who doesn’t think that we’re all working together on this.”
Asked to explain how everyone was working together when Colorado-based aides were excluded, she said: “That’s one interpretation of what happened. It was just staff from D.C. offices. Not any particular office, not any particular party.”
Pitchford was unavailable for comment, Marchio said.
“This is an issue that we have all been working on together, and whenever we’re excluded from any kind of meeting of importance, it is unfortunate,” said Steve Wymer, a spokesman for Allard.
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
