Severity of Injuries Requires New Forms of Rehabilitation(3K w/ brain damag...

[rainbow4321]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,443754,00.html

Never before have so many US soldiers survived such terrible injuries as during the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have suffered multiple injuries, including brain damage. In special rehabilitation centers, caretakers are battling to restore the lives of severely injured GIs.

The novelty of the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is that more and more soldiers like Hicks are now surviving their injuries. The survival rate for US soldiers was never as high in any previous military operation. The reasons include the new state-of-the-art, bullet-proof vests that soldiers are equipped with and the fact that mobile army field hospitals are equipped with the best technology available. As of early October 2006, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan was 3,094; the number of injured soldiers was 21,649. That's seven injured soldiers for every dead one. During the Vietnam War, the ratio was only two or three to one.

More than 3,000 American soldiers have suffered brain damage in Afghanistan and Iraq. In half of these cases, the trauma will lastingly affect their capacity to think, their memory, their mood, their behavior and their ability to work. Many of the victims are hardly adults, barely even 20. And many of them will require special treatment for the next five, six or seven decades. A joint study conducted by Harvard and Columbia unversities estimated that the cost of caring for them will be at least $35 billion.

The number of soldiers with these types of mulitple injuries is so high that US government had to create four so-called "polytrauma rehabilitation centers" last year -- in Palo Alto, California; Tampa, Florida; Richmond, Virgina; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. There, the "latest generation of America's heroes" -- as the injured soldiers are called in a statement issued to their relatives -- is shielded from the public.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. And the public...

Is kept from the reality of these fine kids.

Isn't that typical?

[undergroundpanther]

2. If the public knew

And was shaken from denial, We'd be in the streets and mercenaries from black water would be microwaving us for standing up for the injured and calling for the war to stop NOW, bush's war of choice.

I bet the polyinjured don't act or look pretty anymore,and I am sure seeing their injuries and mental damage won't make for must see TV,I mean people are squeamish about the disabled sick and people that aren't"well". I bet seeing the soldiers injuries would make "normal" people feel helluva uncomfortable.Maybe even complicit and ashamed for not protesting and stopping the Iraq war or interfering with the'secret projects" the Pentagon cooks up, or being a corporate cog..The people seeing these veterans, may become DISAFFECTED twords the corrupted authorities whom created the war ,profit from the war,and whom in the name of extending their own power through empire, injured the soldiers by proxy in such gruesome ways .The aftermath of psychopathy abusing power is never pretty to see.When will we ever learn?

[w4rma]

3. *This* needs to be front page news. People don't understand what is

going on over there. It's all a fantasy to too many people.

[truthisfreedom]

4. naturally, it takes an overseas organization to release this information

to the American public. sickening.

[rainbow4321]

11. It's been the case alot lately...

Most of the articles like this I've been getting from European or Australian newspapers via the www.antiwar.com webpage's links.

http://antiwar.com/latest.php

Click on the "more news" option at the bottom of the page and the long list of articles to pick from are primarily newspapers from outside the US.



Guess we won't see chimp doing any photo-ops at these polytrauma sites anytime soon.

[ninkasi]

5. How, in the name of what anybody calls holy

can this be? Gravely injured, unable to live a normal life, the men and women who have served in Bush's war of choice will be discarded by the same people who sent them to battle. The ones who were for the war, as long as somebody else fought it, are now turning their backs on the ones who put their lives on the line, and fought that war.

Has there ever been a regime as corrupt, and completely corrupt as the present one? I don't know of one, and FDR was president when I was born. The government, under Bush, has become an unholy alliance of the religious right, and corporate felons. We, the peasants who pay the salaries of the corrupt, are shut out of all decision making. We pay for all of it.

My life would be complete if the current crop of liars and criminals are sentenced to jail terms that reflect the suffering that the employees of Enron, and the shareholders who lost their life savings have given up in this completely unholy alliance.

When will the rich, and powerful, be held to account for the damage they have done to our country? When will they suffer with the rest of us?

[pecwae]

6. I've seen a few at the Durham VA

I suppose they hadn't been swept away to one of these 'sites' so no one could see them.

One case in particular I'll always carry with me. She was AA, around 22, totally WC bound with a trach. Her hands and feet were curled with contractions and even with her head bandaged you could see an indentation. She used a talking board to communicate with her attendant. She was supposed to have been there for scans, but some idiot had sent her to the wrong department and she and her attendant had been sitting there for 30 minutes before the attendant asked if they were in the right area. There was no apology for keeping this young woman waiting for so long in the wrong place.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. why not just run them for congress?

It would be a positive in many ways.

First, the net IQ in Congress would almost double.
The Sanity-Insanity factor would make Congress significantly more safe for the world.
They would get access to mental and physical health care that most Americans don't even dream about.
We'd have people with real world experience who would trust K-street lobbyists about as much as they trust a hidden IED outside the green zone.
They'd only have to work part time, giving them a lot of opportunity for rehab.

[zanne]

8. That's the saddest article I've read about the war.

There is something worse than death. The story of that young soldier who lost both arms, his eyesight and brain injuries that reduced his cognitive abilities to that of a small child is just devastating. Where's the "glory" in that?

[kestrel91316]

12. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Required reading for

anyone who thinks they support this, or any, war.

[Binka]

9. Seven Decades Of Care

I know someone who is in that position. He was 18 when he was blown to shit, lost a leg and took shrapnel to the head. He is in Walter Reed a year and 16 days after the IED hit Ben's unit. He will be there for quite some time. BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

[Tansy_Gold]

10. The insult at the end. . . . . .

I shouldn't cut and pasted, but I was tooooooo angry.

The soldier profiled is determined, despite his injuries, to return to his national guard service, because despite his injuries he has to serve another five fucking years before he's eligible for a pension.

words fail me.