#258 The Feres Doctrine (Part II) w/ Maximillian Potter & Richard Stayskal
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2023
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is part two of our conversation w/ Maximillian Potter & Richard Stayskal. For part 1, check out RTN episode # 257.
Since 1950, the Feres Doctrine has prevented active-duty members of the US Armed Forces from suing the government for wrongful injury or death that occurred outside of combat. In this episode we speak with journalist Maximillian Potter and decorated Green Beret Richard Stayskal to learn about the injustice many service members have endured, the reasoning behind the decision, and what can be done to help bring justice to those wrongfully injured while serving in the US Armed Forces.
Links to more information relevant to this episode:
Maximillian Potter, "Incident to Service, Vanity Fair, Dec. '22/Jan. '23.
Khawam Law (the firm that is helping Richard Stayskal and other veterans fight for justice in Congress): https://www.khawamlaw.com/
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher, Bob Crawford & Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Bob Crawford and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:08.5 | This week on the Road to Now, the Fairst Doctrine, Part 2. |
| 0:12.5 | Last week, we spoke with journalist Max Potter and Master Sergeant Richard Stayskill. |
| 0:18.2 | Max is the author of a Vanity Fair December 2022, January |
| 0:23.1 | 2023 feature entitled Incident to Service that tells the story of the history of the obscure |
| 0:29.7 | 70-year-old Ferris Doctrine and the people who have suffered as a consequence of it. One of whom |
| 0:35.4 | is Master Sergeant Richard Stayskill, a green beret and highly |
| 0:38.8 | decorated Marine Corps veteran. In 2017, while in Special Forces training, Stayskill was given a CT |
| 0:45.4 | scan as part of a physical for dive school. At the conclusion of the exam, as far as Stayskill knew, |
| 0:51.6 | everything was fine. But just a few weeks later, StaySkill began finding |
| 0:56.7 | it difficult to complete the simplest tasks. A few days after that, he was coughing up specs of |
| 1:02.5 | blood. CT scan was not fine, but Stayskill didn't know this until he received care outside of the |
| 1:10.6 | military system. Because of the Ferris Doctrine, |
| 1:13.8 | he was unable to sue the military for medical malpractice. In episode one, we learned that the history |
| 1:21.3 | of the Ferris Doctrine is sordid and jaw-dropping. A military plane crashes into the Empire |
| 1:27.4 | State Building. During a surgery, |
| 1:29.9 | a military surgeon leaves a towel inside the body of a service member. The facts surrounding |
| 1:34.7 | the Ferris Doctrine are stranger than fiction. In the military industrial complex's practice |
| 1:39.6 | of calculating the value of a soldier, the same way they calculate the value of a tank or artillery rounds |
| 1:45.9 | lay at the heart of the problem. If you haven't listened to episode one, please check it out on our |
| 1:50.5 | feed. Today we continue our conversation with Max and Richard, and we find out the challenges that |
| 1:55.9 | Richard faced when he took on the Ferris Doctrine before Congress. |
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