Tacoma, Wash. ? The Army is rethinking the way it evaluates wounded and injured soldiers who are no longer fit for duty because of post-traumatic stress disorder and certain other conditions.

But a board at Fort Lewis, Wash., continues to move soldiers with those medical problems through the Army’s disability assessment system, even though the new guidelines have yet to be published, according to attorneys who represent soldiers.

In effect, soldiers must argue their case without knowing the rules by which the board will size up their injuries, say the three Army lawyers who represent soldiers before the Fort Lewis Physical Evaluation Board, or PEB.

Attorneys from the Office of Soldiers’ Legal Counsel stated their objections in a March 19 letter to the PEB president, Col. John O’Sullivan.

“A soldier’s statutory right to a full and fair hearing is fundamentally violated if they are not provided the standards upon which they are to be judged in advance of the hearing,” they wrote.

Meanwhile, in a letter sent after visiting Fort Lewis several weeks ago, the Army’s top civilian lawyer raised concerns about a possible “Wal-Mart greeter test” in determining whether soldiers are well enough to be denied benefits.

The PEB board decides whether wounded and injured soldiers from across the western United States should receive retired pay and military benefits such as health-care coverage and base privileges, or one-time severance payments with no benefits, or no compensation at all.

The three attorneys who wrote the March 19 letter are Maj. Damon D. Gulick, Lt. Col. Ronda W. Sutton and Steven E. Engle, a civilian who is the chief of office.

They said that until the new rules are distributed, the soldiers and their lawyers “do not know what evidence to gather, marshal and present that will be most relevant” to the board’s decision-making in each case.

A board official and an Army Human Resources Command spokesman declined to comment Friday.

The Army’s Physical Disability Agency is in the midst of a rewrite of the guidelines for rating the severity of injuries such as PTSD, lost range of motion in joints such as the neck and shoulders, sleep apnea and other conditions.