Check this story out -- looks like getting limb blown off in combat no longer automatically means that you're discharged:
Looks like this is a voluntary thing, so if a soldier wants to keep being a soldier after something like this happens, far be it for me to tell him no. Seems crazy, though.
U.S. soldiers with missing limbs allowed to return to active duty
By AP
May 30, 2007
SAN ANTONIO (AP) ? In the blur of smoke and blood after a bomb blew up under his Humvee in Iraq, Sgt. Tawan Williamson looked down at his shredded leg and knew it couldn't be saved. His military career, though, pulled through.
Less than a year after the attack, Williams is running again with a high-tech prosthetic leg and plans to take up a new assignment, probably by the fall, as an Army job counselor and affirmative action officer in Okinawa, Japan.
In an about-face by the Pentagon, the military is putting many more amputees back on active duty ? even back into combat, in some cases.
...
Previously, a soldier who lost a limb almost automatically received a quick discharge, a disability check and an appointment with the Veterans Administration.
But since the start of the Iraq war, the military has begun holding on to amputees, treating them in rehab programs like the one here at Fort Sam Houston and promising to help them return to active duty if that is what they want.
By AP
May 30, 2007
SAN ANTONIO (AP) ? In the blur of smoke and blood after a bomb blew up under his Humvee in Iraq, Sgt. Tawan Williamson looked down at his shredded leg and knew it couldn't be saved. His military career, though, pulled through.
Less than a year after the attack, Williams is running again with a high-tech prosthetic leg and plans to take up a new assignment, probably by the fall, as an Army job counselor and affirmative action officer in Okinawa, Japan.
In an about-face by the Pentagon, the military is putting many more amputees back on active duty ? even back into combat, in some cases.
...
Previously, a soldier who lost a limb almost automatically received a quick discharge, a disability check and an appointment with the Veterans Administration.
But since the start of the Iraq war, the military has begun holding on to amputees, treating them in rehab programs like the one here at Fort Sam Houston and promising to help them return to active duty if that is what they want.
Looks like this is a voluntary thing, so if a soldier wants to keep being a soldier after something like this happens, far be it for me to tell him no. Seems crazy, though.
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