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Recovery unit set up plan for soldier care

FORT BRAGG, North Carolina — The first thing Lt. Col. Terry McDowell did when he took command of a recovery unit for wounded troops at Fort Bragg was establish a transition plan for wounded soldiers to work toward as soon as they arrive.

“This isn’t a permanent Army unit. It is a transition unit,” McDowell said in his first interview since taking command. “We’ve got the structure in place, medical-wise, to get a [warrior in transition] to what their end-state goal is as rapidly as possible.”

At the same time, he’s making sure staff members are better trained to distinguish medical problems from disciplinary ones.

McDowell, 42, from Bonaire, Ga., took command in April of Fort Bragg’s Warrior Transition Battalion, where soldiers had complained to top officials about their treatment.

McDowell said soldiers coming to the unit now have a timeline and a set of goals. It keeps the wounded soldiers motivated and allows doctors to set a target date to transition them out of the unit. In the past, wounded soldiers have languished in the unit for months with little or no idea how they are progressing. Army-wide, the average soldier spends 366 days in a Warrior Transition unit. The average at Fort Bragg is 350.

“It should cut down on frustration with where they are in the transition process since their plan and milestones will be reviewed every six weeks,” McDowell said. You are not going to find a better place to go through the healing process and get the care and services needed for a person who is set on reaching their transition goal. Can we make it better? Yes. But we are light years from where we were two years ago, and it is going to continue to move that way.”

Tom Tarantino, legislative associate for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the comprehensive transition plan addresses one of the main problems for wounded soldiers: stagnation.

“These people are active. They are goal oriented. They are always moving forward to the next thing,” Tarantino said. “This is a very positive step. Giving someone a mission and a goal has proven to work.”

Wounded troops at Fort Bragg told Army Secretary Pete Geren earlier this year that they felt forgotten by the military and that combat duty would be better than the treatment they were getting, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. Some of the soldiers also told Geren they had “feelings of worthlessness and abandonment,” the memo states. They told Geren that low morale and suicides in the base’s Warrior Transition battalion were “pushed by [a] negative command climate” that is enforced by the unit’s squad leaders.

McDowell said all the squad leaders, case managers and staff at the Warrior Transition Battalion must now complete a two week course in San Antonio before working at a warrior transition unit. The course teaches them how to deal with medical issues like traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder. It also explains the mission of the warrior transition unit and how it operates.

“When dealing with WT issues, you need to have multiple leadership tools in your bag to know when to put your arm around the soldier and prop them up or when to tell them to drive on with their mission,” McDowell said. “You need to be able to quickly assess the individual and what motivates them to move out with their transition. That doesn’t come naturally for everybody, but it is something you can learn over time.”

Tarantino said the training is essential because soldiers coming from combat units need to remember they are taking over a unit made up of wounded soldiers.

“They are not there to run an efficient military unit, they are there to organize patient care and recovery. You run into the typical knucklehead soldier stuff that in a standard line unit is a discipline issue. These soldiers have the same type of problems, but they are not dirtbags. They have other problems,” Tarantino said.

The AP found that discipline rates vary widely across the Warrior Transition system. McDowell said the unit’s discipline record was reviewed by Brig. Gary Cheek’s Warrior Care and Transition Office, which oversees all of the Army’s warrior transition units. Reviewers ruled that there is “no evidence ... to support the contention that commanders do not consider medications and or medical conditions to determine whether to administer nonjudicial punishment.” Both Army Medical Command and 18th Airborne Corps Staff Judge Advocate Offices also reviewed the Fort Bragg Warrior Transition Battalion and concurred with Cheek’s review.

McDowell said his staff discusses every case with a soldier’s doctors before he signs off on any punishments to make sure none of the problems are medical. He said discipline and structure are critical to the success of the unit.

“They have leadership in place to monitor what is going on with them and ensure they are staying on track with the healing and transition process. If history is an indication of success, there have been over 800 soldiers that transitioned through this unit and either returned to civilian life or returned back to their unit in the last two years.”