1/ I'd like to take a moment to discuss a story we ran this morning on the Feres Doctrine, a 1950 legal rule that bars troops and their families from suing the government for negligence or wrongdoing when injury or death is deemed to be "incident to military service."
2/ If you haven't read the piece, please take a moment to do so: taskandpurpose.com/feres-doctrine…
3/ In the decades since it was established, the Feres Doctrine has been broadly applied to cases far beyond the battlefield, to include training, medical malpractice, and sexual assault, and it hinges on this line: “Incident to military service.”
4/ There’s a common sentiment among vets and service members: That volunteering to serve means signing over your rights. Due to Feres that’s actually true, and not just the belligerent grumblings of a former Marine.
5/ Under Feres, if you were to go to a military hospital for appendicitis and wound up with severe brain damage — because you were in the military, that would be seen as “incident to military service.”
articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/20/na…
articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/20/na…
6/ If 2 women — a service member and a dependent — went into labor at the same base hospital, got the same care, and were both victims of malpractice and died: The dependent’s family could sue. The servicewoman’s family could not.
Under Feres, death during childbirth is seen as “incident to service.”
taskandpurpose.com/military-widow…
taskandpurpose.com/military-widow…
7/ The Feres Doctrine is not new, neither is the outcry from veterans advocates, lawyers, service members, or lawmakers. Yet, for decades the legal rule has weathered attempts to see it overturned, and Congressional efforts to have it altered.
8/ There’s a lot of theories as to why the Feres Doctrine has remained in place. The most compelling, to me, is this explanation, from an attorney who teaches military law at Yale: That it's simply easier to maintain the status quo. "Inertia," he called it. 
9/ A final note: While Feres may crop up in the news every few years and create a "blip of interest," publications like @Militarydotcom @MilitaryTimes @starsandstripes, (among others) have provided consistent, insightful coverage for years. @TaskandPurpose intends to do the same.
