Monday, March 12, 2007
It sure took long enough
But Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley has finally got the boot. As a measure of how well he served the Bushoviks he was allowed to retire.
UPDATE: The Army Times has an analysis of the disability numbers.
Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren asked for Kiley's resignation, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved the action, a senior Pentagon official said.After they opened that can of worms, Kiley was going to go one way or another. It's too bad he gets out with a full pension while so many of the wounded are fighting for any kind of disability support.
In its official announcement, the Army said Kiley had requested retirement.
UPDATE: The Army Times has an analysis of the disability numbers.
The 2006 disability retirement numbers released by the Defense Department show trends similar to an analysis of data reported by Military Times this week.
Though 10,460 soldiers went through medical retirement system in 2006, only 412 received lifetime retirement benefits. But in the Air Force, where 6,000 fewer airmen went through the process, 514 people received lifetime medical retirement benefits.
Read the new data analysis for 2005 and 2006 here.
The Navy and Marine Corps combined sent 5,348 people through the process, with 151 receiving permanent medical retirement.
Conversely, the number of injured soldiers given one-time severance pay in 2006 was five times the number of injured airmen. Service members with severance payments do not receive medical benefits for life or the other benefits that come with being a retiree, such as commissary and exchange benefits or continued military health care. This has proven problematic for service members who then go to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical benefits, because they must first pay back their severance pay before receiving disability payments from the VA.
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