TEMECULA, Calif – He was one of America’s first defenders on Sept. 11, 2001, a Marine who pulled burned bodies from the ruins of the Pentagon. He saw more horrors in Kuwait and Iraq.
Today, he can’t keep a job, pay his bills, or chase thoughts of suicide from his tortured brain. In a few weeks, he may lose his house, too.
Gamal Awad – the American son of a Sudanese immigrant – exemplifies an emerging group of war veterans: the economic casualties.
More than in past wars, many wounded troops are coming home from the Middle East, a triumph for military medicine. But they often return hobbled by prolonged physical and mental injuries from homemade bombs and the anxiety of fighting a hidden enemy along blurred battle lines.
These troops are just starting to seek help in large numbers, more than 185,000 so far. The cost of their benefits is already testing resources set aside by government and threatening the future of these wounded veterans for decades to come, say economists and veterans’ groups.
“The wounded and their families no longer trust that the government will take care of them the way they thought they’d be taken care of,” says veterans advocate Mary Ellen Salzano.
How does a war veteran expect to be treated? “As a hero,” she says.
In Awad’s case, he needs to think of a reason each morning not to kill himself.
He can’t even look at the framed photograph that shows him accepting a Marine heroism medal for his recovery work at the Pentagon after the terrorist attack. It might remind him of the burned woman whose skin peeled off in his hands when he tried to comfort her.
He tries not to hear the shrieking rockets of Iraq either, smell the burning fuel, or relive the blast that blew him right out of bed. The memories come steamrolling back anyway. “Nothing can turn off those things,” he says, voice choked and eyes glistening.
He stews alternately over suicide and finances, his $43,000 in credit-card debt, his $4,330 in federal checks each month. They bring the government’s compensation for total disability from post-traumatic stress disorder. His flashbacks, thoughts of suicide, and anxiety over imagined threats – all documented for six years in his military record – keep him from working.
The disability payments don’t even cover the $5,700-a-month cost of his adjustable home mortgage and equity loans. He owes more on his house than its market value, so he can’t sell it and may soon lose it to the bank.
“I love this house. It makes me feel safe,” he says.
Awad could once afford it. He used to earn $100,000 a year as an experienced Marine with a master’s degree in management who excelled at logistics. Now, he can’t even manage his own life.
Few anticipated the high price of caring for Awad and other Middle East veterans with deep, slow-healing wounds. And few predicted such a protracted war in Iraq, one in which Iraqi insurgents would rely on disfiguring bombs and bombardment as chief tactics. Better armor and field medicine have kept U.S. soldiers alive at the highest rate ever, according to one study based on government data. However, many are returning with multiple amputations or other disabling injuries.
The Pentagon counts more than 29,000 combat wounded in the Middle East since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Tens of thousands more got hurt outside of combat or in ways that only surface later.
The government says it takes care of its own. Of 1.4 million U.S. forces deployed for Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 185,000 have sought care from the VA – a number that could easily top 700,000 eventually, predicts one academic analysis.
But many also need to help themselves. Iraq veteran John Waltz, of Hebron, Ky., sought treatment for PTSD but ran up about $12,000 worth of medical bills while his condition and claim were evaluated, he says. “We have to be really frugal, as far as what groceries we buy,” Waltz says.
Economic forecasts vary widely for the federal costs of caring for injured veterans returning from the Middle East, but they range as high as $700 billion for the VA. That would rival the cost of fighting the Iraq war. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these costs per person are higher than any war previously,” says Scott Wallsten of the conservative think tank Progress and Freedom Foundation.
The VA takes the lead in treating wounds and paying for disabilities of veterans. And it usually does a good job of handling major, known wounds, especially in the early months, by many accounts.
However, many veterans and families say the VA often restricts rehabilitation or cuts it off too quickly.
Denise Mettie, of Selah, Wash., says she fought successfully for VA funds to rehabilitate her brain-damaged son, an Iraq veteran, in a private hospital where he was given five times more therapy. But she’s been living “paycheck to paycheck” to cover travel to his bedside and other costs of his care.
Some wounded veterans turn to private health insurance and other programs outside the federal government, swelling costs also for states and towns. Service nonprofits also pay for housing, food, clothing and transportation for wounded veterans.
Veterans groups sued the VA a few months ago, saying the agency has descended into a “virtual meltdown.” Many recommendations for fixes involve quicker and heftier disability benefits. And nearly everyone begs for more VA money and staff for medical treatment.
But it may be too late for veterans like Awad, as he nervously awaits the approach of imagined enemies around what was once his castle.
