Fleet Marine Life #49 – Selective Disability
The Marine Corps has it’s fair share of malingerers. They malinger to get out of physical training, to dodge deployments, or to just set cruise control until EAS. If someone’s on light duty, they usually need a chit to prove it. They get that chit from the nearby military medical center where a Navy Doc looks at them and gives them a limited duty chit or not. The funny thing is that these docs are not PhD holders. This leads to all sorts of hilarious results.
One of the Marines in my platoon just got back from Afghanistan and then broke his foot in a motorcycle accident. The ground was wet and the motorcycle did some crazy shit. So he jumped off and the motorcycle fell from the air and on to his foot. Later that day, he showed my platoon his foot. It looked like a red football. I may not be a PhD holding doctor but I could easily tell that foot was broken. Well, he went to one military medical center and they told him it wasn’t broken. Having doubts, he went to another military medical center and that’s when he found that it was actually broken.
I could go on and on about medical and how it isn’t exactly the best of the best. I mean, shit. For half the shit I had, I was given Motrin, Tylenol or a bit of “suck it the fuck up”, which wasn’t helpful one time because I was still vomiting all over the place.” This topic is for another entry.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I’ve met quite a few Marines who I perceived to have “selective disability.” Those Marines with selective disability are usually females. But don’t get it twisted, there are Males too. Just not a lot of them. Selective disability is a kind of disability that happens to show up when these malingerers want to feel most comfortable and the kind of disability that goes away when they want something comfortable.
Female Marines usually are on light duty. I don’t know how the hell most of them that I come across are on light duty or how the hell they get their medical chits. Maybe it’s just me and someone can tell me otherwise. But usually, these females will get out of Unit Physical Training because they’re “broke” and on light duty, usually indefinitely. Also, they CANNOT do anything physical once on light duty. This causes the platoon to be short-handed when it comes to real physical work. Then if there’s a temporary assigned duty to Las Vegas or some crazy shit, then these malingerers all of the sudden have been healed! Shit pissed me off. Once these Marines have light duty chits, you can’t make them do any strenuous physical work. It’s the malingerer’s shield. You can make them clean a lot.
But not everyone is a malingerer. Some people have legit health problems. Being in the Marine Corps for a few years will fuck up your body. I knew a lot of Marines with health problems. Most of them at least tried to help the platoon and try to be an asset. I have developed some minor breathing problems, which I lied about on my final physical because I wanted to get the fuck out of the Marine Corps.
Personally, I’ve only been on light duty about 3 times for a total time of about nine days in a 4 year period. Some people have been on light duty 20 times a year. I mean, come on. Seriously?
On a final note, if you’re not a Marine, the MEU stands for Marine Expeditionary Unit. Usually they travel to all sorts of wonderful exotic locations that tourists would pay good money to go to. It’s like a vacation cruise except worse.
Malingering since 1775.
One thing that really pissed me off is that when a E-1 to E-3 is sick and vomiting, he is told to stop malingering. When an E-4 or above say they hurt, they can get out of almost anything. I remember being told to suck up the pain in my eye, but when I went to the hospital, I had corneal ulcers that nearly blinded my left eye. I was also told to suck up some REALLY bad headaches, but a spinal tap revealed I had meningitis, an nervous system infection. But when a gunny sprains his ankle, his world stops.