Proposal would put injured soldiers in classrooms

WASHINGTON — Battle-injured soldiers who can't return to combat could find another calling in life — as teachers in military academies — if a plan by a Mississippi congressman catches on with the Army.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., implored Army Secretary John M. McHugh last week to advocate for putting more wounded warriors in teaching or mentoring positions, and Mr. McHugh said he was interested.

Mr. Taylor, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee who has taken an active role in programs for wounded soldiers, has been pushing for several years to put wounded soldiers in classrooms. While he has had some success — the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., announced such an effort recently for recovering soldiers and Marines — other services have yet to sign on.

"It's going to take your intervention," Mr. Taylor told Mr. McHugh, his former colleague on the Armed Services Committee, at a hearing on the Army's proposed 2011 budget.

"It's a very interesting suggestion," Mr. McHugh said, adding that the Army aims to reintegrate soldiers as they are injured in combat and recover from their wounds.

Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., asked Mr. McHugh to report back to Mr. Taylor within three weeks.

In addition to being role models for recruits, recovering soldiers could benefit by being in a setting relatively close to home, either through military academies or Reserve Officer Training Corps programs, Mr. Taylor said.

Such assignments could even speed their recovery, he said.

The Army would not necessarily have to create a new program, Mr. Taylor's office reported. And the academies would not necessarily have to add many positions, instead putting recovering soldiers into jobs through attrition or perhaps into adjunct professorships. Mr. Taylor is counting on Mr. McHugh's personal interest and advocacy to spark more interest at the academies and in ROTC.

Steering wounded soldiers toward teaching is one of many ways the services have been seeking to help them make a contribution while still on active duty. Fort Drum and other installations have wounded warrior transition units that group recovering soldiers together while they prepare to return to their units, leave the service or settle into other jobs. So does the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where the WTU's commander is a soldier permanently blinded from combat in Iraq in 2005.

In the case of the Merchant Marine Academy, officials with the Navy and the Maritime Administration created a program to make veterans eligible for light-duty assignments in classroom instruction and student mentoring.