Washington D.C. — The U.S. Army’s Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, responded quickly to accusations in a New York Times article published over the weekend accusing the Army of mistreating soldiers in its warrior care units at Fort Carson, Colorado. “The Times article focused upon a select number of soldiers and families that had encountered problems…it’s wholly unrepresentative of the totality in the context of what we’ve done for warrior care, especially in the last three years,” Schoomaker told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Monday afternoon.
In perhaps the most damning line of Sunday’s front page story, the New York Times described Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Unit as a “warehouse of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers.” Schoomaker responded to that line directly, saying “Of all of the descriptions in there, with the exception perhaps of the suffering that individual soldiers and families have had, that sentence alone is among the most offensive to us.”
Warrior Transition Units were formed in wake of the Walter Reed barracks scandal of 2007. The intent was to comfortably house active duty soldiers suffering from mental and physical wounds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Patients are meant to feel that they are still part of an Army unit and that they can get full time support from peers, squad leaders and nurses.
Yesterday’s New York Times article quoted one soldier in the Fort Carson Warrior Transition Unit who said, “Being in the W.T.U. is worse than being in Iraq.” It said soldiers at Fort Carson complained doctors prescribed drugs too quickly and too often, turning many soldiers to harder drugs such as heroin. It also pointed out that Fort Carson has the highest suicide rate of all the programs, with 4 deaths since 2007.
Lt. Gen. Schoomaker said a survey taken within the Fort Carson Warrior Transition Unit shows satisfaction is high, “at about 90 percent.” Throughout the country he said WTU satisfaction is at 81 percent. He did, however, acknowledge some problems.
“With 9,300 soldiers in the program, we dont always get it right. To that end, we take every criticism and concern seriously and continuously strive to to improve our program.” And suicides, Schoomaker said, are more frequent in WTUs because it’s a “higher risk population.” As for criticism that the non-commissioned officers are abusive, Schoomaker said that concerns him. “Just as medical professionals, caregivers, can — can encounter problems of burnout and compassion fatigue, these soldiers are — certainly can fall victim to that.”
Schoomaker said the Army is constantly evaluating its own performance and that there is an ongoing inspection by the Army’s Inspector General into warrior care. But no new investigations into abuse from non-commissioned officers, prescription drug abuse, or illegal drug abuse will be conducted as a result of the New York Times story.