-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 2, 2007 7:46:01 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: From Heroes to Zeros: Many Iraqi War Vets Returning Home
HOMELESS
We will lose savings and home,
says injured soldier's mother
· Parents make up shortfall for 'insulting' award
· MoD will not raise payout for severely injured son
Esther Addley
The Guardian (UK), September 1, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2160263,00.html
The mother of a British soldier who was severely injured while
fighting in Afghanistan has said she will lose her life savings and
will have to sell her home because of the "insulting" compensation
offer made to her son by the Ministry of Defence.
Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, 23, has been described as one of
the most seriously wounded soldiers ever to survive. He lost both
legs, suffered serious brain damage, fractured several vertebrae
and sustained 34 further injuries when his vehicle struck a
landmine in Helmand province last September.
Yet despite the severity of his injuries, which have left him
unable to speak and unlikely ever to walk, he was awarded £151,150
compensation, less than half the maximum available under the Armed
Forces compensation scheme.
Yesterday his mother, Diane Dernie, 49, told the Guardian that she
and Ben's father, both of whom have remarried, would have to use
their retirement savings to buy an adapted bungalow for their son
when he leaves hospital. She and her husband Andy, 48, would also
have to sell their home in Doncaster, she said.
The couple have given up their jobs to move to London to be close
to the injured soldier. They say many military families will find
themselves in a similar position if the awards system is not
overhauled.
Mrs Dernie has spent the past week dealing with a media storm as
her son has become the figurehead of a campaign for better
treatment of injured soldiers.
Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defence staff, has described
Ben's case as "terrible". "As a nation we really should be ashamed
of the way we treat people like this," he said.
Mrs Dernie sought publicity as a last resort, she said, in a bid to
embarrass the Ministry of Defence over the payout, which she said
has left her "white hot angry". Under the Armed Forces compensation
scheme only three injuries are taken into account when calculating
an award.
Ben was deemed worthy of nothing for most of his wounds, including
fractures to his pelvis, skull, cheekbones and jaw, and a severe
injury to several vertebrae which has left his spine seriously
deformed.
"How can you say, 'If this man has got three injuries we will
compensate him to some degree for every injury that he has, but
this man has got 37 injuries, so we will only pay for three -- and
we will pick which three they are'?"
The scheme, she said, is "specifically set up so that people with
multiple injuries can't get large, cumulative sums".
"They don't expect Ben to survive, and others like him," said Mr
Dernie, "so that's not a problem, that's a dead one. That's under a
different scheme anyway. They can pay an even lower figure out.
They don't look at actual needs of people."
An MoD review of the system is due to conclude next month, but it
insists that Ben's award cannot be altered. It also said that he
would receive a monthly tax-free payout on discharge that could
amount to a further £1m over his lifetime.
Mrs Dernie is now seeking a judicial review, however, and argued
that a new system should apply retrospectively to his case.
Ben was injured on September 12 last year and flown to the UK two
days later. Since then Mrs Dernie has spent just eight nights at
her home, travelling around the country as her tall, handsome son,
now curled over a wheelchair, his hands clawed, has moved from
hospital to hospital.
She and her husband are currently staying in a sparse military flat
in south London. They are a quiet, unassuming couple, who though
"devastated" by his injuries, recognised that "this happens".
"We said, Ben was a soldier. Ben wouldn't want to be moaning, we
knew this. And we stuck to that religiously. But when we got the
offer, it was just too much," she said. "It was the final straw."
Despite her profound reluctance, Ben always wanted to join the
army, said Mrs Dernie. "He wanted to be what he called just a
soldier."
He joined up when he was 16, and was in Iraq by 18, promoted to
Lance Bombardier in the 7th Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery.
"I said to him, 'Ben, this isn't all running round jungles'," said
Mrs Dernie, "you know, the worst could happen. You may have to
fight. And he said, 'Oh, it'll never happen to me.' What they
always say. 'And if you're dead you're not bothered anyway.' And I
said to him, 'There are a lot worse things than being dead, Ben.'
And that haunts me now. That haunts me.
Last week Ben was moved to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation
Centre in Epsom, Surrey, for intensive therapy. Though doctors
believed he would never emerge from a coma, he can now communicate
using a computer and, apart from memory loss, his family insist his
functions are intact. He has been told that because of the
combination of his injuries it would be "some kind of miracle" if
he walked again. "But that's the miracle that we want. That's the
miracle that Ben wants," she said.
"Ben is a soldier. We aren't. We aren't in the army, but we are
the ones who are going to be paying for our soldiers' war injuries
with our retirement and for the rest of our lives."
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