Guard and reserve wounded left behind.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: Brief Article

An Army Guard and Reserve program designed to support wounded soldiers is so overwhelmed by the pace of deployments that injured personnel lost medical care because of their change in status, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.

"Many of the case-study soldiers incurred severe, permanent injuries fighting for their country including loss of limb, hearing loss and back injuries," stated the GAO report, released in February. "Nonetheless, these soldiers had to navigate the convoluted and poorly defined process for extending active-duty service."

The Active Duty Medical Extension program, set up in July 2000 for reservists injured while on active duty or in training, only had a staff of three when wounded reservists flooded the office, leading to long delays. Injured soldiers looking to extend their active-duty status, in order to continue getting care to which they were entitled, were lost in the system's delays, and had to pay for care themselves. The number of soldiers who...