shocker1
12-17-2006, 10:46 AM
Contractors deal with aftermath of Iraq work
By Ashley Rowland Staff Writer
Edward Bryant remembers his windshield exploding and then — nothing.
He woke up moments later, still at the wheel of his truck and still rolling north down a highway toward Baghdad, alive but hurt. The explosion had cut his arm and cost him much of his hearing, part of his sight, and his ability to stand without falling over.
That was a year and a half ago. Since then, the Clarksville, Tenn., truck driver with once-near-perfect vision has gotten glasses so he doesn’t see double and a hearing aid so he can hear. He takes medication to control mood swings caused by post traumatic stress disorder. He said he cannot drive because of severe dizziness caused by injuries to his head, and he has learned to stand without falling over, as long as he thinks about where he puts the pressure on each foot.
Mr. Bryant, 46, also said he has learned that being injured on the job doesn’t mean your insurance company will pay your medical bills or that you’ll get workers’ compensation. In essence, he said, civilian contractors like himself are just forgotten.
"I thought we’d be taken care of," said Mr. Bryant, who drove fuel trucks across Iraq for Kellogg, Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary also known as KBR.
Representatives from KBR and American International Group, or AIG, the insurance carrier for its contractors, said they could not comment on Mr. Bryant’s case because of privacy laws. But Melissa Norcross, manager of public relations for Halliburton, wrote in an e-mail that all potential KBR employees are repeatedly briefed on the dangers of working in Iraq, and they receive information about benefits they and their families can receive if injured or killed under the federal law.
Mr. Bryant is one of thousands of civilians hired by private government contractors to do vital but dangerous jobs in Iraq, such as driving trucks loaded with food or fuel for U.S. troops, providing security and rebuilding infrastructure. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that there are about 100,000 civilian contractors in Iraq.
Many of those contractors go through the same experiences in Iraq as U.S. soldiers, such as being targets of sniper fire, ambushes and improvised explosive devices. The Web site www.icasualties.org (http://www.icasualties.org) reported Saturday that 376 contractors had died in Iraq since July 2003. The site provides an incomplete list of contractors who have died.
Among the injured, many don’t get the same medical, psychological and financial support as wounded soldiers, even if they have insurance, according to those who work with them.
"The system is now set up so (insurance companies) have all kinds of incentives to litigate the case," said Gary Pitts, a Houston attorney who represents Mr. Bryant and hundreds of other contractors. "The taxpayers pay."
A RISKY JOB Mr. Bryant said he decided to go to Iraq because he was too old to enlist in the military, but he wanted to help in the conflict. He said the pay was good, maybe a little more than what he earned as a truck driver in the United States, but it was the 100-hour workweeks that made the job lucrative.
The work was dangerous. Insurgents attacked truck convoys on nearly every trip. Mr. Bryant said some trucks were blown out from under him while he was driving, and several drivers he knew were killed.
"The people we were fighting weren’t dumb. They knew as good as we did that if the Army didn’t get the fuel, the planes didn’t fly and the tanks didn’t run," he said.
When Mr. Bryant was working in Iraq, he said KBR officials issued contractors a helmet, a vest and a pair of goggles. At the time, their trucks didn’t have safety glass or armor to protect them from explosions, Mr. Bryant said, and contractors didn’t get ear protection, which he now believes might have saved his hearing.
Since he returned to the United States last August, he said AIG has refused to pay for some of his treatment and stopped his workers’ compensation for several weeks until he called Sen. Lamar Alexander’s office and asked for help. He said an AIG employee called him back the same day and told him his workers’ compensations checks would resume and he would be reimbursed for the missed payments.
"I don’t know what was done," Mr. Bryant said. "I thank Lamar Alexander for it personally."
Months after he returned from Iraq, Mr. Bryant said KBR officials told him that he could get a medal from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if he signed a statement saying he didn’t hold the company or the U.S. government responsible for his injuries. He refused. CAUGHT IN THE SYSTEM Mr. Pitts, the Texas attorney, said contractors are entitled by federal law to get medical benefits and worker’s compensation for post traumatic stress disorder or other injuries. But their insurance companies almost always contest the claims in court, even though the government is required to reimburse them for the cost of medical treatment for their clients, plus a 15 percent handling fee, he said.
The government sometimes refuses to pay without a judge’s ruling that the client is sick, he said.
"There are just a whole lot of the cases that are being denied. They won’t pay them without having to go through the system," he said. "It takes about a year and a half to get a decision. In the meantime, the person with the sickness is not getting medical care."
Mr. Pitts said if civilians are going to be a significant part of the war effort, they should get treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals that are prepared to handled war trauma.
Sen. Alexander disagreed.
"Attempting to add (civilian contractors) to our overburdened VA system would make it more difficult to ensure that our men and women in uniform receive the benefits they’ve been promised," he said.
Peter Tulupman, a spokesman for AIG, said the company has paid as much as 90 percent of documented claims filed by workers covered by the Defense Base Act, the federal law that applies to civilians who work for the military. AIG may initially deny a contractor’s claim because it wasn’t properly documented within the 14-day span insurance companies have to decide to accept or deny a claim, he said, but that happens only in a small number of cases.
"The vast majority are paid once the issues are resolved," he said.
Jana Crowder, a Knoxville homemaker with four children, runs a support Web site for former contractors. She said she spends three to 12 hours a day answering their phone calls and e-mails and contacting therapists, attorneys and other aid workers on their behalf.
She started the Web site, www.americancontractorsin (http://www.americancontractorsin) iraq.com, while her husband was in Iraq working for KBR. He wasn’t injured and didn’t suffer any long-term effects from being there, but she said the sheer number of contractors who contact her asking for help getting someone to pay for their treatment shows there’s a problem. She plans to hold a conference in February for the contractors, she said.
"I am literally nobody. I am a housewife with four kids, happily married," said Mrs. Crowder, 36. "The fact that they’re begging for help, that tells me right there that they have exhausted all roads. There is nothing there for them to go to."
SENSE OF DUTY Not all contractors are scarred by the war.
Cindy Morgan, of Lebanon, Tenn., spent two of the past three years in Iraq as a truck driver. She plans to enlist in the Army this month so she can go to boot camp before she turns 42 in March, the cutoff age to enlist in the military.
Since coming home, she said she’s had minor bouts with post traumatic stress disorder, and at first had trouble driving on American roads without swerving to the shoulder when she spotted something on the highway that, in Iraq, could have been a bomb. But she knows other contractors who have had more serious medical and mental problems, even becoming suicidal.
She said the pay was good, but she went to Iraq to make changes in her personal life.
"There’s not enough money for me to go play Russian roulette with my life," said Ms. Morgan, who wrote a book about her experiences in Iraq. "It’s the camaraderie, the feeling that you are making a difference. Knowing that you’re helping improve the lives of troops, it’s a very gratifying feeling, and you get used to that way of life."
Mr. Bryant also said he didn’t go to Iraq for the money.
"I’d get rid of every dime in the world if I could get rid of this hearing aid and these glasses and get on my motorcycle and go for a ride," he said.
E-mail Ashley Rowland at arowland@timesfreepress.com ON THE WEB To read more about Lebanon, Tenn., contractor Cindy Morgan’s experiences in Iraq, go to wwwcindyiniraq.com. http://www.tfponline.com/QuickHeadlines.asp?sec=l&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fepaper%2Etfponline%2Ecom%2FWebChannel%2FShowStory%2Easp%3FPath%3DChatTFPress%2F2006%2F12%2F17%26ID%3DAr00102
By Ashley Rowland Staff Writer
Edward Bryant remembers his windshield exploding and then — nothing.
He woke up moments later, still at the wheel of his truck and still rolling north down a highway toward Baghdad, alive but hurt. The explosion had cut his arm and cost him much of his hearing, part of his sight, and his ability to stand without falling over.
That was a year and a half ago. Since then, the Clarksville, Tenn., truck driver with once-near-perfect vision has gotten glasses so he doesn’t see double and a hearing aid so he can hear. He takes medication to control mood swings caused by post traumatic stress disorder. He said he cannot drive because of severe dizziness caused by injuries to his head, and he has learned to stand without falling over, as long as he thinks about where he puts the pressure on each foot.
Mr. Bryant, 46, also said he has learned that being injured on the job doesn’t mean your insurance company will pay your medical bills or that you’ll get workers’ compensation. In essence, he said, civilian contractors like himself are just forgotten.
"I thought we’d be taken care of," said Mr. Bryant, who drove fuel trucks across Iraq for Kellogg, Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary also known as KBR.
Representatives from KBR and American International Group, or AIG, the insurance carrier for its contractors, said they could not comment on Mr. Bryant’s case because of privacy laws. But Melissa Norcross, manager of public relations for Halliburton, wrote in an e-mail that all potential KBR employees are repeatedly briefed on the dangers of working in Iraq, and they receive information about benefits they and their families can receive if injured or killed under the federal law.
Mr. Bryant is one of thousands of civilians hired by private government contractors to do vital but dangerous jobs in Iraq, such as driving trucks loaded with food or fuel for U.S. troops, providing security and rebuilding infrastructure. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that there are about 100,000 civilian contractors in Iraq.
Many of those contractors go through the same experiences in Iraq as U.S. soldiers, such as being targets of sniper fire, ambushes and improvised explosive devices. The Web site www.icasualties.org (http://www.icasualties.org) reported Saturday that 376 contractors had died in Iraq since July 2003. The site provides an incomplete list of contractors who have died.
Among the injured, many don’t get the same medical, psychological and financial support as wounded soldiers, even if they have insurance, according to those who work with them.
"The system is now set up so (insurance companies) have all kinds of incentives to litigate the case," said Gary Pitts, a Houston attorney who represents Mr. Bryant and hundreds of other contractors. "The taxpayers pay."
A RISKY JOB Mr. Bryant said he decided to go to Iraq because he was too old to enlist in the military, but he wanted to help in the conflict. He said the pay was good, maybe a little more than what he earned as a truck driver in the United States, but it was the 100-hour workweeks that made the job lucrative.
The work was dangerous. Insurgents attacked truck convoys on nearly every trip. Mr. Bryant said some trucks were blown out from under him while he was driving, and several drivers he knew were killed.
"The people we were fighting weren’t dumb. They knew as good as we did that if the Army didn’t get the fuel, the planes didn’t fly and the tanks didn’t run," he said.
When Mr. Bryant was working in Iraq, he said KBR officials issued contractors a helmet, a vest and a pair of goggles. At the time, their trucks didn’t have safety glass or armor to protect them from explosions, Mr. Bryant said, and contractors didn’t get ear protection, which he now believes might have saved his hearing.
Since he returned to the United States last August, he said AIG has refused to pay for some of his treatment and stopped his workers’ compensation for several weeks until he called Sen. Lamar Alexander’s office and asked for help. He said an AIG employee called him back the same day and told him his workers’ compensations checks would resume and he would be reimbursed for the missed payments.
"I don’t know what was done," Mr. Bryant said. "I thank Lamar Alexander for it personally."
Months after he returned from Iraq, Mr. Bryant said KBR officials told him that he could get a medal from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if he signed a statement saying he didn’t hold the company or the U.S. government responsible for his injuries. He refused. CAUGHT IN THE SYSTEM Mr. Pitts, the Texas attorney, said contractors are entitled by federal law to get medical benefits and worker’s compensation for post traumatic stress disorder or other injuries. But their insurance companies almost always contest the claims in court, even though the government is required to reimburse them for the cost of medical treatment for their clients, plus a 15 percent handling fee, he said.
The government sometimes refuses to pay without a judge’s ruling that the client is sick, he said.
"There are just a whole lot of the cases that are being denied. They won’t pay them without having to go through the system," he said. "It takes about a year and a half to get a decision. In the meantime, the person with the sickness is not getting medical care."
Mr. Pitts said if civilians are going to be a significant part of the war effort, they should get treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals that are prepared to handled war trauma.
Sen. Alexander disagreed.
"Attempting to add (civilian contractors) to our overburdened VA system would make it more difficult to ensure that our men and women in uniform receive the benefits they’ve been promised," he said.
Peter Tulupman, a spokesman for AIG, said the company has paid as much as 90 percent of documented claims filed by workers covered by the Defense Base Act, the federal law that applies to civilians who work for the military. AIG may initially deny a contractor’s claim because it wasn’t properly documented within the 14-day span insurance companies have to decide to accept or deny a claim, he said, but that happens only in a small number of cases.
"The vast majority are paid once the issues are resolved," he said.
Jana Crowder, a Knoxville homemaker with four children, runs a support Web site for former contractors. She said she spends three to 12 hours a day answering their phone calls and e-mails and contacting therapists, attorneys and other aid workers on their behalf.
She started the Web site, www.americancontractorsin (http://www.americancontractorsin) iraq.com, while her husband was in Iraq working for KBR. He wasn’t injured and didn’t suffer any long-term effects from being there, but she said the sheer number of contractors who contact her asking for help getting someone to pay for their treatment shows there’s a problem. She plans to hold a conference in February for the contractors, she said.
"I am literally nobody. I am a housewife with four kids, happily married," said Mrs. Crowder, 36. "The fact that they’re begging for help, that tells me right there that they have exhausted all roads. There is nothing there for them to go to."
SENSE OF DUTY Not all contractors are scarred by the war.
Cindy Morgan, of Lebanon, Tenn., spent two of the past three years in Iraq as a truck driver. She plans to enlist in the Army this month so she can go to boot camp before she turns 42 in March, the cutoff age to enlist in the military.
Since coming home, she said she’s had minor bouts with post traumatic stress disorder, and at first had trouble driving on American roads without swerving to the shoulder when she spotted something on the highway that, in Iraq, could have been a bomb. But she knows other contractors who have had more serious medical and mental problems, even becoming suicidal.
She said the pay was good, but she went to Iraq to make changes in her personal life.
"There’s not enough money for me to go play Russian roulette with my life," said Ms. Morgan, who wrote a book about her experiences in Iraq. "It’s the camaraderie, the feeling that you are making a difference. Knowing that you’re helping improve the lives of troops, it’s a very gratifying feeling, and you get used to that way of life."
Mr. Bryant also said he didn’t go to Iraq for the money.
"I’d get rid of every dime in the world if I could get rid of this hearing aid and these glasses and get on my motorcycle and go for a ride," he said.
E-mail Ashley Rowland at arowland@timesfreepress.com ON THE WEB To read more about Lebanon, Tenn., contractor Cindy Morgan’s experiences in Iraq, go to wwwcindyiniraq.com. http://www.tfponline.com/QuickHeadlines.asp?sec=l&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fepaper%2Etfponline%2Ecom%2FWebChannel%2FShowStory%2Easp%3FPath%3DChatTFPress%2F2006%2F12%2F17%26ID%3DAr00102