Soldier charged $700 for lost body armor

[Balta1701]

Um...yeah...DOD...This needs to stop. Right now.

 

The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.

 

A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.

 

But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.

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He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.

 

He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.

 

Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.

 

“I last saw the [body armor] when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter,” Rebrook said. “They took it off me and burned it.”

 

But no one documented that he lost his Kevlar body armor during battle, he said. No one wrote down that armor had apparently been incinerated as a biohazard.

 

Rebrook’s mother, Beckie Drumheler, said she was saddened — and angry — when she learned that the Army discharged her son with a $700 bill. Soldiers who serve their country, those who put their lives on the line, deserve better, she said...

 

In the past, the Army allowed to soldiers to write memos, explaining the loss and destruction of gear, Rebrook said.

 

But a new policy required a “report of survey” from the field that documented the loss.

 

Rebrook said he knows other soldiers who also have been forced to pay for equipment destroyed in battle.

 

“It’s a combat loss,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a cost passed on to the soldier. If a soldier’s stuff is hit by enemy fire, he shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

 

Rebrook said he tried to get a battalion commander to sign a waiver on the battle armor, but the officer declined. Rebrook was told he’d have to supply statements from witnesses to verify the body armor was taken from him and burned.

[Balta1701]

Americablog went and raised a ton of cash to pay this guy's bill.

[kapkomet]

WTF?

 

And if this is more then an oversight, why aren't more stories being made about this? Something doesn't fit here, and something tells me this is a very isolated incident.

[YASNY]

WTF?

 

And if this is more then an oversight, why aren't more stories being made about this?  Something doesn't fit here, and something tells me this is a very isolated incident.

 

And it ends up here. Imagine that.

[Balta1701]

And it ends up here.  Imagine that.

You know why I post these things? Very simple. The more people who see it...the more likely it is to change.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

WTF?

 

And if this is more then an oversight, why aren't more stories being made about this?  Something doesn't fit here, and something tells me this is a very isolated incident.

^^^^

 

 

You can chalk this one up to "s*** happens". Ive seen it before.

[Texsox]

^^^^

You can chalk this one up to "s*** happens".  Ive seen it before.

Lier, your just saying that to make the military look bad.

 

This stuff just pisses me off. We talk about war protestors taunting returning vets, but this to me is far more of an insult.

 

Off to write Hinojosa, Hutchinson, and Cornyn . But I think 2 out of the 3 have me on filtered status.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Lier, your just saying that to make the military look bad.

 

This stuff just pisses me off. We talk about war protestors taunting returning vets, but this to me is far more of an insult.

 

Off to write Hinojosa, Hutchinson, and Cornyn . But I think 2 out of the 3 have me on filtered status.

 

 

A paperwork snafu is not intentional. War protestors messing with returning troops is.

 

Apples & Oranges buddy.

[Texsox]

A paperwork snafu is not intentional.  War protestors messing with returning troops is.

 

Apples & Oranges buddy.

 

Common sense would say don't charge the guy. He was clearly injured. This isn't a paperwork snafu. This is some mindless clerk processing an insult. Sorry about that leg, pay up. Paperwork snafus can be corrected in seconds, this is an insult to his service and injuries by the very people who should have honored him. That is why it is more on an insult in my eyes.