Carson braces for influx of soldiers returning with wounds of war

More than 100 wounded warriors are expected to join Fort Carson’s embattled Warrior Transition Battalion straight from Afghanistan in the weeks ahead, lending new urgency to questions about the unit’s effectiveness.

The three-year-old medical unit treats an average population of 440 soldiers, some of whom struggle with battle wounds ranging from burns and amputated limbs to mental scars from repeat deployments.

To accommodate the unit’s latest arrivals, Fort Carson plans to add more than a dozen health care workers and more than 30 new uniformed administrators — creating a fifth company in the growing battalion.

“We’d like to see it up and operational by June,” the battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Andrew Grantham, said Monday.

News of the expansion came as Fort Carson mounted another effort to confront concerns about the unit a week after it was singled out in a New York Times story that condemned Warrior Transition Units as “warehouses of despair” in which fragile soldiers are medicated and forgotten.

Speaking before a room of reporters Monday at Fort Carson, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli said the Army is looking into the newspaper’s claims, particularly complaints that medications are overprescribed to soldiers.

But he also sought to inspire confidence in the Carson unit, labeling as “outstanding” the soldiers and staff who administer the program.

“I believe this is one of our top WTUs,” Chiarelli said.

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, joined in the news conference after touring the post’s medical facilities. Also present was Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, commander of the Army Warrior Transition Command, who was on post as part of an unrelated review.

The Army created Warrior Transition Units in 2007 in the wake of complaints about medical services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The Times said in an April 25 story that it interviewed more than a dozen soldiers who complained that patients are “kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly” when their medications cause them to oversleep and miss formation and other requirements.

Last week, top Army officials brushed aside many of those claims, citing surveys showing an 82 percent satisfaction rate among patients. Fort Carson’s approval rate, at more than 90 percent, is among the highest, they said.

Grantham said he is meeting with former patients this week to get a better grasp on how to reach the “4 percent” who struggle under the program.

That issue is bound to take on new importance as the 3,500-soldier 4th Brigade Combat Team completes its slow trickle home from Afghanistan by July.

The brigade has suffered 45 deaths to date, and dozens of injuries.

Behavioral health workers stationed with the soldiers have identified about 100 who will need immediate services from the Warrior Transition Battalion when they return, Grantham said. That doesn’t include wounded soldiers who have been sent home before the deployment ended.

He said more are expected after a 90-day “honeymoon period” in which the soldiers gradually recognize they need help.

“They have had a difficult deployment,” he said.

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