He lost an arm in Iraq; the Army wants money
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He lost an arm in Iraq; the Army wants money
Spc. Robert Loria is stuck at Fort Hood, Texas
By Dianna Cahn
Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
Middletown – He lost his arm serving his country in Iraq.
Now this wounded soldier is being discharged from his company in Fort Hood, Texas, without enough gas money to get home. In fact, the Army says 27-year-old Spc. Robert Loria owes it close to $2,000, and confiscated his last paycheck.
"There's people in my unit right now – one of my team leaders [who was] over in Iraq with me, is doing everything he can to help me .... but it's looking bleak," Loria said by telephone from Fort Hood yesterday. "It's coming up on Christmas and I have no way of getting home."
Loria's expected discharge yesterday came a day after the public got a rare view of disgruntled soldiers in Kuwait peppering Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with questions about their lack of adequate armor in Iraq.
Like many soldiers wounded in Iraq, Loria's injuries were caused by a roadside bombing. It happened in February when his team from the 588th Battalion's Bravo Company was going to help evacuate an area in Baqubah, a town 40 miles north of Baghdad. A bomb had just ripped off another soldier's arm. Loria's Humvee drove into an ambush.
When the second bomb exploded, it tore Loria's left hand and forearm off, split his femur in two and shot shrapnel through the left side of his body. Months later, he was still recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and just beginning to adjust to life without a hand, when he was released back to Fort Hood.
AFTER SEVERAL MORE MONTHS, the Army is releasing Loria. But "clearing Fort Hood," as the troops say, takes paperwork. Lots of it.
Loria thought he'd done it all, and was getting ready to collect $4,486 in final Army pay.
Then he was hit with another bomb. The Army had another tally – of money it says Loria owed to his government.
A Separation Pay Worksheet given to Loria showed the numbers: $2,408.33 for 10 months of family separation pay that the Army erroneously paid Loria after he'd returned stateside, as a patient at Walter Reed; $2,204.25 that Loria received for travel expenses from Fort Hood back to Walter Reed for a follow-up visit, after the travel paperwork submitted by Loria never reached the correct desk. And $310 for missing items on his returned equipment inventory list.
"There was stuff lost in transportation, others damaged in the accident," Loria said of the day he lost his hand. "When it went up the chain of command, the military denied coverage."
Including taxes, the amount Loria owed totaled $6,255.50. The last line on the worksheet subtracted that total from his final Army payout and found $1,768.81 "due us."
"It's nerve-racking," Loria said. "After everything I have done, it's almost like I am being abandoned, like, you did your job for us and now you are no use. That's how it feels."
AT HOME in Middletown, yesterday, Loria's wife, Christine, was beside herself.
"They want us to sacrifice more," she said, her voice quavering. "My husband has already sacrificed more than he should have to."
For weeks now, Christine has been telling her 3-year-old son, Jonathan, that Robbie, who is not his birth father, will be coming home any day now.
But the Army has delayed Loria's release at least five times already, she said, leaving a little boy confused and angry.
"Rob was supposed to be here on Saturday," she said. "Now [Jonathan] is mad at me. How do you explain something you yourself don't understand?"
Christine said the Department of Veterans Affairs has been helpful in giving Loria guidance about how to get his life back on track, offering vocation rehabilitation to "teach them to go back out in the world with the limitations they have."
But the Army brass has been unreceptive, she said.
The Lorias also contacted the offices of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties. Hinchey's office responded.
"There's enough to go on here to call the Army on it and see if it can get worked out," said Hinchey aide Dan Ahouse. "We are expressing to the Pentagon that based on what we see here, we don't see that Mr. Loria is being treated the way we think our veterans returning from Iraq should be treated."
Army officials at Fort Hood could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"I don't want this to happen to another family," Christine Loria said. "Him being blown up was supposed to be the worst thing, but it wasn't. That the military doesn't care was the worst."
The end of her rope
Christine Loria was at the end of her rope earlier this week when she called her wounded husband's commanders at Fort Hood, Texas, and gave them a piece of her mind.
The Army was discharging her husband, Robert, after he lost his arm and suffered other severe injuries in Iraq, without even gas money to drive his car home.
"I am up here and he's there. That's 1,800 miles away," she said. "I had to call his chain of command and scream at them."
Their reaction she said, was "very mature."
"If he feels that way, why is his wife talking for him? Why doesn't he come talk to us himself?" she remembers them asking her.
"Because on some level, he still respects you," she answered. "I don't have that problem." -
Man, those of us enlisted knows how it all feels, when you do your best for the SAF and get screwed by them for all your hard work in the process.
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fuck the usa.
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Fuck the high ups in the armed forces everywhere. how many of them actually take care fo their men properly? far too few for comfort. Thats the Fucking problem with career officers. It's ALWAYS about their own Asses.
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Well said.The fella has already shed his blood, done his duty and even still has the decency not to shout at his commanders, which is far too much than the pigs deserve.
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What does your screwed up life got to do with the U.S.A? Unless, of course, you're a rag-head or a John Kerry-kiss-ass.Originally posted by thinger:fuck the usa.
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It may be a sad story about that soldier who lost his arm but the circumstances for the Army not paying him is still unclear.
I'm assuming that he either borrow heavily from the army for personal reasons or he was a learn as you earn soldier. Whatever the reason, irregardless of whatever organisation, Money loan is still money owed.
Can you say for sure that if this soldier had borrowed from the bank & then lost his arm, the bank would forget about his loan?
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Banks and the Army are different.They perform different roles.The Army could defer the payments till after his recovery and has found a job.No point kicking a man when he is down right?Says a lot about the professionalism or too much of it in the force.
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Originally posted by John Ching:
that may be, but its stupid to send him back to iraq to be discharged, and then leave him stranded there without $ to get home for XMAS!
It may be a sad story about that soldier who lost his arm but the circumstances for the Army not paying him is still unclear.
I'm assuming that he either borrow heavily from the army for personal reasons or he was a learn as you earn soldier. Whatever the reason, irregardless of whatever organisation, [b]Money loan is still money owed.
Can you say for sure that if this soldier had borrowed from the bank & then lost his arm, the bank would forget about his loan? [/b] -
This type of thing happen not just in US but also Singapore also.
There is a lot of injuried soldiers that is so called "dump" and forgotten by the so call Army they once belong to without compensation, will be so till you force action on them. -
Care to share any story that you know with us.Originally posted by storywolf:This type of thing happen not just in US but also Singapore also.
There is a lot of injuried soldiers that is so called "dump" and forgotten by the so call Army they once belong to without compensation, will be so till you force action on them.
How do you force the Army to take action? If the Army does not want to pay the compensation you cannot force them. You also cannot take the Army to court. Is that why moral and loyalty is so low in the Army? 
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I share with you my personal experience.Originally posted by want to know:Care to share any story that you know with us.
How do you force the Army to take action? If the Army does not want to pay the compensation you cannot force them. You also cannot take the Army to court. Is that why moral and loyalty is so low in the Army?
Torn my both thighs muscles (permanemt damage)in Reservist training can hardly walk. Medical record and incident report all documented incident.
However my unit kept asking me for IPPT and In-camp (standby unit platoon commander ) very stupid as I can hardly even walk. Seem like they screw up in the incident report, and was trying super hard to coverup. They even went to the extent of losting my medical record and other records related to the incident. They refuse to accept that I was even present in camp and refuse to accept that I was injuried, lucky for me I have MC from MO to prove that I was in camp and send to Medical center.
So what happen is a long fight with my unit try to cover their ass as it was very serious offend for Unit to screw up on a major incident report, especially injuires or death. Due to trying to cover up their error, they just cannot recoginse my injuries, even if I pretend I was injuried outside ( I just wanted downgrade, forget about the compensation, the trouble I have so far is not worth it) as they are frightened that in the end the truth may lead back to them. Desprite repeated warning letters from hospital, providing MRI scans, doctor letters to downgrade me, they are still inaction. I tried to sort help and wrote to folk in charge of reservist, yes they did try to help and call my camp to do something. Yes my camp did something, the S1 call me to express how unhappy that I complain, and give me indirect warning ..... but again refuse to recoginse my injuries.
The stupid thing is they still keep sending me for IPPT and in-camp which I am no longer capable of, and each time I need to go to Hospital to beg for letters and document to ask to be excuse ! Finally my Hospital doctor ran out of patient, he wrote a very super nasty letter addressing to the Camp MO & the Camp Commander directly, threatening legal action if my injuriy get any more serious due to their and suborinates, inaction, and he will be more then willing to tesified on how they chose to ignore the top doctor in that field, desprite repeated warning letters ( hard-copies of them are in hospital files ! ) also the hospital have MRI scan showing the extensive injuries of both legs.
Finally the threat of legal action work, that that finaly got thinks working, I got my medical board within 1 week, and downgraded straight. Just imagine, how fast suddenly move, when the right ass is kicked ! That show that if someone have show care to help just a little, it would have spare me a lot of trouble and pain. Imagine, limping around 2 or 3 day each month to do stupid paperwork, when the army camp is so isolated.
Moral and loyalty ? What I wanted was just to be evaluated for downgrade, as I can hardly walk, post a danger to my men and others if i go on mission. I can tell you one thing, during my injuires days, which I can hardly walk, did anyone in my Unit show me that moral or loyalty ? Where the "duty, country and honor" when they accuse and threaten me, even though I have done all my things right.
Of course there are a lot like me out there, that face the same or worse problem and are not that lucky. I hate to say it, imagine an officer get treated that way when he was injuried, how about a non rank soldier ? Someone who did not take it up the fight.
By the way, my story did have a happier ending. At least there are some folks in the Army that care and understand, which help to correct the matter even though it was years later. Mindef did put in some effort to clear a lot of back lot case of injuries, after 5 years they did dig up my file and decide to close my case, as there is enough evidence, they give me another medical board and compensation. Better late than never.
As for the question, can we take the army to court ? Look the commando death case is in court now isn't it ! -
if SAF want loyalty from us, they better know how to earn it, not force it. Storywolf's case is simply one incident among many such similiar cases which have happened.
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Totally agree.Any organization must get get rid of the mentality that all personnel are expendable and start to earn the loyalty of their people, whether the latter are there by chocie or otherwise.
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i can imagine SAF sending limp pple into combat.
Whatever it is,i never want to be on the frontline.
I just wanna be one the L337 pple who push the button .