Walter Reed's World of Hurt, Hope

[WhiteTara]

Finally the human suffering of the war is being told. Good article, fairly long. It all makes me want to cry, but then I get angry instead.
IMPEACH GEORGE BUSH AND SEND THEM ALL TO THE HAGUE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040402067.html
snip

Treating Tragedy
The medical personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have treated more than 1,400 war-wounded soldiers during the last three years, leaving them shaken, exhausted and inspired by the individuals in their care.


At 7 a.m., he reports for duty at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The war remains ubiquitous in the operating rooms, some of which are set aside for the returning wounded, and on the wards, where amputees begin coming to terms with their new realities. Montgomery, a physical therapy assistant with the bulk of a former defensive end, works in a ball- and mat-filled space where, hour after hour, he challenges and cheers on brain-injured soldiers not much older than his own teenager.

So many have arrived in the past three years -- so many continue to arrive -- that they have transformed the hospital's routine. The staff has been redeployed, programs created, a special military company activated just for the injured. "This has become our normal," a nurse explains. But the cumulative effect of nearly 4,900 patients, including 1,458 battle casualties, has done more than change the institution. It has deeply affected the hundreds of doctors, nurses and therapists who work there -- who have been inspired by the resiliency and motivation of the individuals in their care, yet shaken and exhausted by the magnitude of loss.

Since the first soldier was admitted March 28, 2003, nine days after the invasion of Iraq, Walter Reed has confronted damage of daunting proportion: limbs blown off, guts blown open, brains devastated by piercing shrapnel or by concussive explosions, or maybe all that and more. The youth of the wounded elicits sadness, even tears. The veteran staff members look at these patients and see their sons and daughters. Their younger counterparts see siblings, friends.

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At the start, they expected that the transports of casualties would taper off quickly. But three times a week, the white buses from Andrews Air Force Base still turn off Georgia Avenue NW through the hospital's main gate. They pull slowly up the looping drive to where a double line of gurneys and a small company of gown-clad escorts wait, and then each bus's back door swings open, revealing the litters of patients. Some soldiers are only 48 hours off the battlefield. The most critically injured are unloaded with so much medical equipment they are scarcely visible beneath it.

[northofdenali]

1. Occupation in it's 4th year, at least 3 more to go.

Those busses and gurneys won't slow down any time soon. ITMFA.

The Asshole in Chief and his cronies deserve more than just jail time for their crimes. :cry::mad::cry:

K&R

[saigon68]

2. And yet---they keep joining ----to kill brown Islamics etc.