BILL GAITHER/The Register-Mail

United States Army Spc. Josh Eckley speaks with family and friends in August 2006 after returning home with injuries from Iraq.

'There's nothing right about it'

Family disappointed in benefits for soldier injured in Iraq

Monday, August 6, 2007

By RON JENSEN

The Register-Mail

And therein, oddly, lies his problem.

An insurance program administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs pays soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines for traumatic loss, from $25,000 up to a maximum of $100,000.

Had the 2000 graduate of Yorkwood High School lost a hand, for example, he would have received a payment of $50,000. The same would be true if he had lost a foot. Or sight in one eye.

The payment would have been $100,000 for losing both hands, both feet or sight in both eyes.

Eckley was injured in July 2006 when a roadside bomb armed with three rockets and 15 gallons of rocket fuel blew apart the 9-ton gun truck he was driving.

A metal rod now holds his aching back together. A three-inch gap in his clavicle prevents him from lifting more than 15 pounds or so. He has headaches and is undergoing therapy for problems of forgetfulness.

"They gave me the minimum $25,000 for it," he said. "I don't understand the guidelines."

The money came through the Traumatic Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, a U.S. Army program administered by the VA that pays for traumatic injuries on a sliding scale. Besides those mentioned above, there is a payment for loss of a thumb and index finger, for example, and for loss of hearing or speech.

Eckley and his mother, Tracey Jones of Little York, are thankful he has all of his limbs and his sight. But they think the TSGLI has underestimated his injuries because they are not obvious.

"Just looking at me, it's hard to notice," Eckley said in a telephone interview from Oklahoma, where he is being treated at the VA hospital in Oklahoma City.

Jones said, "He's 25 years old. He can't run. He can't jump."

He will not be able to hold the baby he and his wife, Michelle, are expecting in December, Jones said.

Jones said she called for an explanation of why her son was denied more than $25,000 for his wounds and was told, in part, that Eckley could dress and feed himself.

"I said, 'You've got to be kidding,' " she said.

An act of Congress established TSGLI in December 2005 to provide a financial assist to servicemembers with traumatic injuries. It is retroactive to Oct. 7, 2001, the start of the war to chase the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, and has provided more than $200 million to servicemembers of all branches.

TSGLI has identified 44 criteria for the one-time, tax-free payment, from loss of fingers to quadriplegia. Forty-three of them are clear-cut, describing an obvious injury - loss of one hand above the wrist, total and permanent loss of hearing in both ears - or combining them - loss of one hand plus permanent loss of sight in one eye.

The 44th criterion, however, is less clear and it is the one used to provide Eckley's benefit. It recognizes the "inability to carry out activities of daily living." It pays $25,000 after 30 days and an additional $25,000 after each 30-day increment the disability persists up to 120 days.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, public affairs officer with the VA's Human Resources Division, said those claims "have proven to be the most challenging to evaluate, given the more subjective nature of the claim assertions."

The program tries to favor the servicemember in cases that are considered borderline, his e-mail response to questions noted, adding that Eckley's case could not be discussed specifically because of privacy concerns.

If a servicemember's injuries do not fit into the list, "there's little that can be done to force eligibility." The TSGLI cannot arbitrarily add injuries to the list.

However, the VA has met with each branch of service in an annual review of the program and several recommendations were made that eventually will provide additional support, he wrote.

Eckley's journey has been long. He spent a few weeks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where his care, he said, was a comedy of errors.

Nurses put his back brace on backwards at one point. A poorly placed epidural caused him so much pain he blacked out. A blood clot in his leg went undetected.

Since then, he said, he has had good care at VA hospitals in Chicago, Iowa City, Iowa, and Oklahoma City.

Once told he wouldn't walk, he now walks unaided.

He is now waiting for the Army to discharge him. With his discharge will come a lifetime medical benefit, the size of which he doesn't know yet.

His job options are few since his physical stamina is limited. He can neither sit nor stand for long periods of time, besides not having the strength the former high school football lineman once had.

"I'll look maybe into selling cars," he said.

Jones said the additional $75,000 she thinks her son deserves would have helped pay for a house and new car.

"There's nothing right about it," she said.

Eckley said other servicemembers in combat are suffering injuries similar to his.

"There's a lot of people getting hurt over there," he said. "They're just not losing limbs."

On the Net

TSGLI: http://www.insurance.va.gov/sgliSite/TSGLI/TSGLI.htm