Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007 | 7:27 a.m.
It is understandable that former Marine Cpl. Jacob Schick vents his frustration from time to time.
In September 2004, while he was driving the lead Humvee on a mission against insurgents in Iraq's Al Anbar province, an explosive nearly took his life.
"I went from being one of the elite, the best of the best, to not even being able to go to the bathroom by myself," he told a reporter for Newhouse News Service.
"I was totally prepared to die," Schick said of his service in Iraq. But he wasn't prepared, he said, for the 46 surgeries, including the amputation of his right leg, and the 23 blood transfusions he underwent at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
It's also understandable that Schick, a former high school athlete, despairs from time to time. The Newhouse reporter wrote of the day Schick fell out of his wheelchair and cried for 45 minutes while his mother held his head in her lap.
But it is not understandable why Schick has been left cringing at the thought of entering Veterans Affairs clinics.
"When you have to deal with the VA or TRICARE (the federal health insurance program) you feel beaten down," Shick told the Newhouse reporter. "You are a number, and you feel like a number. It's a total, total beat-down."
Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus appeared before Congress on Monday and is back again today to tell about the war from his perspective. We hope Congress is just as interested in the perspectives of wounded veterans such as Schick.
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