A Letter

I wrote the following letter tonight in response to the situation that made me so sad the other day. I am blocking out names for privacy reasons. Please keep this family in your prayers as they face this difficult time.


August 10, 2009
　
Dear ,

I am writing you today to tell you about an amazing young man and a very sad circumstance. My daughter has been dating a wonderful young man, R since last year. Since he was a young boy R has dreamt of being in the United States Air Force. It seemed early this summer that he was well on his way to achieving that dream. He had graduated from high school early, in January, worked through the spring, and left for Basic Training in Texas in June.

He wrote to my daughter almost daily, his letters filled with excitement for their future. His mother updated us weekly on his progress as he rose up to the top ten graduates. He completed all of his testing with flying colors. All that was left was to prepare for the ceremony. His graduation would have been this coming Saturday and he would have graduated with honors.

Thursday, however, brought tragedy to his American dream. R passed out during an exercise. He was transferred to the hospital in San Antonio where it was discovered that he has a brain tumor. Right then and there it was determined that R would not graduate, that he would receive a medical discharge and he would not receive any benefits. Because he is 18 and left for Basic, his parent’s insurance will not cover him. He would not have the option to go on to schooling in Mississippi for jet engine mechanics because he was now considered non-deployable. He will not have the option of re-enlisting after he recovers.

We were told today that R’s discharge could be final in 4 weeks or less. His mother had surgery of her own at the end of June and is unable to drive to Texas to be with him. The local Recruiter has informed her that there is nothing that the Air Force can do to help her get down there. R is not stable enough to transfer back to Iowa at this point.

While it sounds like the tumor can be removed successfully, there is still no word on when. If the surgery is not performed before his discharge is final, this brilliant young man will be turned out without insurance or his family. This seems awfully cold-hearted of our government to me. This does not seem to fit into the ideals that our nation was built on.

I realize that it is too late by this point for anything to be done about R’s case. Thankfully he is a resilient and driven young man that is already planning to take college courses when he returns home. It saddens me to think that our government is turning this brilliant mind away because he had an unfortunate illness at an inopportune time. Had the tumor been discovered two weeks later he would still have the opportunity to follow his dream of working on jet engines for our Air Force. He would not have to worry about paying the staggering medical bills that he is now facing, he would have a better chance of having his mother there at his side.

Surely there is something that can be done to ensure that our young in similar, unusual circumstances are not turned out to fend for themselves so coldly.

Thank you for your time,