FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Staff Sgt. Jason Jonas says when he goes to bed at night, he is terrified his medication will cause him to oversleep and miss morning roll call again.
His commanders are fully aware the paratrooper wounded in Afghanistan has been diagnosed with a sleep disorder, because he is one of about 10,000 soldiers assigned to the Army’s Warrior Transition units, created for troops recovering from injuries.
Instead of gingerly nursing them back to health, however, commanders at Fort Bragg’s transition unit readily acknowledge holding them to the same standards as able-bodied soldiers in combat units, often assigning chores as punishment for minor infractions.
In fact, the unit has a discipline rate three times as high as Fort Bragg’s main tenant, the 82nd Airborne Division, and transition units at two other bases punish their soldiers even more frequently than the one at Fort Bragg, according to an Associated Press review of records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Jonas, 28, is one of 11 current or former soldiers who have spent time in Fort Bragg’s transition unit and say that its officers are either indifferent to their medical needs or trying to drive injured men and women from the military.
Officers in the transition battalion at Fort Bragg’s Womack Army Medical Center would not discuss individual soldiers’ medical or disciplinary records, citing privacy laws. Speaking generally, they said the way to get soldiers back on their feet is discipline, not accepting excuses.
“Do we hold our capable warriors in transition accountable to these standards, to include the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the various Army regulations? Unapologetically, yes, we do,” said Lt. Col. Jay Thornton, the unit’s commander, adding that soldiers are “helped, not harmed, by maintaining an appropriate level of structure and military discipline.”
Iraq.
