The US Army has a parameter called “deployable strength.” This figure seems to be the nominal, optimal strength of a unit as reflected on what used to be named its DA-1, the unit Morning Report. The Morning Report listed the total strength of a company-sized unit, including all personnel assigned or attached for rations and administrative support and UCMJ, and personnel on leave, in hospital or medical hold, and detached for duty elsewhere. It told a higher headquarters just who was available. The Morning Report was phased out in 1978, replaced by a more efficient electronic gizmo, but the reporting goes on. “Present For Duty” is “Deployable Strength.”

“Here’s who I’ve got to go war with today.”

Simple, no?

No.

Soldiers who were medically unfit or considered borderline have been sent to the Middle East to meet Army goals for “deployable strength,” The Denver Post reported Thursday.

Quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, the newspaper said that more than 50 troops were deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still getting medical treatment for various conditions. At least two have been sent home.

Capt. Scot Tebo, the surgeon for Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, wrote in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper that “We have been having issues reaching deployable strength, and thus have been taking along some borderline soldiers who we would otherwise have left behind for continued treatment.”

Because every uniformed bureaucrat knows the legend is more important than the fact, and soldiers with crippling injuries will miraculously be cured when landed in a combat zone. After all as Mr Bu$h’s neocon advisors keep insisting, it’s all a matter of the will. Apparently that famous Jewish carpenter isn’t the only man who has ever been able to heal a sick man and will him to rise from his bed.

Master Sgt. Denny Nelson said he was sent to Kuwait last month despite a severe foot injury. He was sent back to Fort Carson after a military doctor in Kuwait wrote that he never should have been shipped out.

Maj. Harvinder Singh, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s rear detachment commander, said he did not believe medically unfit soldiers have been sent to Iraq. He said soldiers with medical problems are deployed only if they can be assigned to light-duty jobs and if medical services are available at their destinations.

Fort Carson spokeswoman Dee McNutt said she knew of no Army policy defining “deployable strength” levels that Army commanders must meet.

Singh said commanders have goals, “but there is no repercussion if you don’t hit that goal.”

Uh huh. I see. A commander is not criticized if he doesn’t meet his goals, and it will never affect his promotion chances.

Certainly.

MSG Nelson mentioned above, injured himself while playing on his daughter’s trampoline, circumstances that the Army used to consider in “line of duty” and before the Army’s desperate push to fulfill the demands of Mr Bu$h’s ego and the greed of Mr Cheney’s friends, MSG Nelson would have been left home to fully recuperate, and to follow on when fully recovered.

Now they’re shipping bodies that breathe once in a while to Iraq.

He said he was sent to Kuwait last month even though Fort Carson doctors ordered that he not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds for three months.

Nelson said two other soldiers were deployed with torn rotator cuffs, another was deployed even though he was taking morphine for nerve damage and another had mental health issues.

Nelson said the soldier with nerve damage was sent home after medical staff at a clinic in Iraq turned down his request for more pain medication.

Nelson said that while he was in Kuwait he was told by superiors he would be in charge of 52 soldiers who were receiving medical treatment.

“I expected to find a whole bunch of people, but when I got there, they were all gone. They were already all in Iraq,” Nelson said.

By the way, MSG Nelson did not continue on to Iraq.

Nelson said he feared he would be a liability to fellow soldiers because of his inability to carry full combat gear.

“I’m not going to Iraq not being able to wear any of my gear, not carry a weapon,” he said. “I become a liability to everybody around me because if they get mortared, they’re going to have to look out for me because obviously, I can’t run. I can’t look out for myself. Now I’ve got soldiers worrying about my welfare, instead of their own.”

A doctor in Kuwait – an officer actually paid to think - sent his ass (and damaged leg) back to CONUS, and sent a rather unhappy email back to the authorities at Ft Carson.

Nelson was sent back to the U.S. after a physician in Kuwait, Maj. Thomas Schymanski, sent Fort Carson officials an e-mail saying, “This soldier should NOT have even left [the continental United States] ... In his current state, he is not full mission capable and in his current condition is a risk to further injury to himself, others and his unit.”

I couldn’t speculate how The Denver Post got the copy of the email, but I’ll bet that receives a lot more attention than investigating why the Army is shipping troops to the sandbox who are not fit for duty. And then they have to be sent home, costing the US taxpayer two unnecessary plane tickets.