So, I checked icasualties.org this morning

[unhappycamper]

/RANT ON

As I sit down in front of my computer this morning, I see that three thousand one hundred and ninety of our soldiers have died in this immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq. That’s three thousand one hundred and ninety families who have lost a Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Aunt or Uncle since Dubya's adventure started.

Do you realize that for each death, there are seven to nine severely wounded soldiers that cannot be returned to duty? Many, if not most of them pass through Landstuhl to Walter Reed or some other military medical facility. Isn’t it enough that we blind them, cut off their limbs or other body parts, and destroy their lives? We toss our returning wounded soldiers on the trash bin of the Pentagon’s medical health system. How did we allow this to happen? Why did we allow this to happen?

For the ‘lucky’ ones who have returned to us physically whole, many will have flashbacks caused by PTSD. If not treated, PTSD can be a killer - generations of Vietnam vets and Afghanistan vets and Iraq vets prove my point. Ask the VA how long it takes an Iraq or Afghanistan vet to get a VA appointment with a psychologist. Better yet, ask your veterans. You won't like the answers.

We’re averaging about three American deaths in Iraq per day. Statistically speaking, between now and March 31, 2008 (I think that’s the Democratic target date for withdrawal) another one thousand one hundred fifty eight of ours will be killed. Statistically speaking, between eight thousand one hundred six and ten thousand four hundred twenty two of ours will be severely wounded because those who have been elected to represent ‘We The People’ don’t represent ‘We The People.’

Representative Ed Markey (D-MA-07) is one of the good Democrats. At an Occupation Project meeting in Markey's office, he told a crowd (of really pissed off people in his office) a week ago it will take millions of people in the streets in multiple cities across the country to get the attention of those who can vote to stop this insanity.

Is this what is takes to inject a spine into a Democratically-controlled United States House of Representatives?

Here’s a short cut: If the United States House of Representatives votes NO 218 times on the upcoming supplemental appropriation, the game is over. The killing of Americans will stop.

Help me out here folks, how can we get them to listen to us?



NOTE: Jarheads, Swabbies and Zoomies are lumped in with the soldiers. Mea Culpa. Peace, my Brother and Sisters.

[nitpicker]

1. A slight correction on the figures.

This is a slight exaggeration about the numbers of those now known to have been seriously wounded in action. As of this date, approximately 3500 US personnel (excluding contractors) have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three times that number (about 11000) have been wounded in action badly enough to not return to duty in 72 hours. About 3500 of these were severely wounded enough to warrant being shipped to Walter Reed or Bethesda, with the rest being sent on for care elsewhere. The 11000 not-returned-to-duty is about equal to the number that get returned to duty in 72 hours.

If we say that the severity of the wounded-in-action (returned to duty/not returned) matches the physical status of the non-combat evacuations, then we can state that of the 25000 or so evacuations, half were for serious problems (e.g. the colonel had a heart attack, the sergeant had a heat stroke, someone survived a vehicle rollover, etc). But a number of these would have occurred if they were stateside (physical test problems, too much time sitting at the desk, etc).

I think that a lot of wreckage from the war will not show up to VA hospitals until years after they are damaged. Where will be the funding then?

[Rene]

2. How did we let this damn administration turn Iraq into a battleground

I can't imagine what the Iraqi civilians, who never intended to harm us BEFORE all of this, are experiencing. How would YOU react if it were your country?

[Richard Steele]

3. Where are you getting those numbers from? You don't provide any source. nm

[DemReadingDU]

6. http://icasualties.org/oif/

http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Richard Steele]

8. Thank you, DemReadingDU. Pre-she-ate it! nm

[izzie]

9. I read it was more in the 1 to 17 range. Not sure who put that out.

Every place has different figures which fits with Bush and Co. We will never know for sure as they will not tell the truth. On the show with the reporter who got hurt he also had other figures that were well over 100,000 and if over a million have passed through these countries it must be more than the few they are saying. Also we should look at the private army. They are being paid by tax payers money to also fight. So who we have over their is really kept from us. Makes it even worse as they have had even more over in these countries then they claim and they still can not get a hold of it. I have always said it would never come out or would take years to find all the money that have been skimmed off our tax payers money to fight Bush's wars. Waste and shame on us.

[cmd]

4. But they don't count the suicides of returning GI's

or the toll on the families left behind or the unseen psychological damage to those serving. The numbers aren't exaggerated. The numbers are low.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Nobody has ever counted suicides or family pain

in official war numbers. Whether that's a good thing or not, I'll leave to others to decide. But it is a fact. Moreover, as a question of method, one CANNOT really count those numbers, because 1) it is difficult to attribute causation on suicides, and 2) a family's pain is essentially unquantifiable. In terms of psychological damage, there are studies relating to PTSD, etc., and estimates, but a quantitative methodology is also difficult on that score. I'm not sure what you'd want them to count.

[EFerrari]

10. Too bad there isn't a way to count all the people who are denied care

because they are diagnosed with "personality disorder" and not PTSD.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. I'm sure there would be a way to count that

First, count all the people diagnosed with personality disorders who are denied care on that basis, then sample that group for actual PTSD. It would be fairly straightforward, if there was a will to do it in government (there's not). That's different than the quantifications suggested by the previous poster. In those cases, quantification would be next to impossible.

[EFerrari]

17. I think in practice, it would be hard to prove someone had PTSD

and not a personality disorder beyond a doubt because they can present in very similar ways -- and I just realized that this method by which people are being denied care was probably cooked up by a doctor. :(

[fed-up]

13. DoD Keeps TWO Sets of Books on medical care/injuries 205K treated stats/video

why are you spreading right wing lies and distortions??

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/28/nicholson-dental/

Nicholson Downplays High Numbers Of Injured Vets: ‘A Lot Of Them Come In For Dental Problems’
Through the lens of his own personal recovery from a traumatic brain injury suffered in Iraq, ABC’s Bob Woodruff last night examined the plight of military families dealing with injuries to their loved ones.



Mental disorders: 73,000
Diseases of nervous system: 61,000
Signs of ill-defined conditions: 7,000
Diseases of musculoskeletal system: 87,000.

AUL SULLIVAN, VETERANS ADVOCATE: These are the big numbers, Bob. 200,000 have already gone into VA for medical care.

WOODRUFF: The official number is that there are only about 23,000 soldiers and Marines who have been injured in this war.

SULLIVAN: What you have are two sets of books. The Department of Defense saying there are 23,000 wounded from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Department of Veterans Affairs is actually treating 205,000 veterans from these two wars.

WOODRUFF: According to this internal VA report, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are being diagnosed with a wide variety of ailments; many for multiple problems. The report does not have a category for traumatic brain injury, but it does include post-traumatic stress disorder, mental disorders, infectious and parasitic diseases, and ill-defined conditions.

WOODRUFF: You think americans fully understand how many injured there are in this war?

[fed-up]

15. Straining to keep a promise-Backlogs, long waits plague VA Boston Globe-6 page story

and just in case you missed any of the 500 stories in the past week regarding the lies by DoD and the miserable care the vets are getting, here is a nice wrap up

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/11/straining_to_keep_a_promise/
Straining to keep a promise
Backlogs, long waits plague VA hospital system
By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff | March 11, 2007

...snip

Veterans Affairs is a vast agency that makes a vast promise, one literally etched in bronze at the entrance to its headquarters in Washington -- "To Care for Him Who Shall Have Borne the Battle and for His Widow, and His Orphan."

Much as military planners failed to adequately account for the enormous cost -- in lives, money, and time -- of securing Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein, the VA failed to plan and sufficiently staff for the wave of casualties, and the kinds of injuries that have flowed from the combat zone.

..snip

A Globe review of hundreds of pages of VA memoranda and planning documents, and interviews with present and former agency officials, legislative analysts, and veterans, shows that the VA planned for a short and relatively bloodless war in Iraq, and then was slow to react when the war dragged on and casualties and other claims mounted from 14,000 in 2003 to a projected total of 206,000 this year.
The backlog of disability claims is up to more than 400,000 by the VA's count and climbing. Wait times to process claims are running nearly seven months, on average -- quicker in some places and much longer in others, as Lennon and other veterans have found. In cases where the extent of disability is disputed and an appeal is filed, resolution can take more than two years.

...snip
"Not only is there proof that they knew of increased demand and did nothing. They knew and were actively trying to conceal it," "said Sullivan, who left the agency in frustration, taking with him a trove of unclassified documents that he provided to the Globe.

more at link

[intaglio]

19. There is also the minor problem that the figures do not include

Those who die outside Iraq from their injuries or those dead and injured "contractors" doing military jobs. Add those numbers in and you will have more than 4,000 dead.

[Junkdrawer]

5. The troops know the score - and that's bad for Dubya Inc.....

They know first hand the atrocity that is Iraq....

They've been used up until only a shell remains of their lives...then they're used again...and again...

So, of course, they'll be discarded when Dubya Inc is done with them. And the hope is that they'll never be heard from again. How the hell else will they get fresh victims?

[stellanoir]

11. "Step-on-top-of-this"

just said on "This Week" during the "In Memoriam" segment that 27 service people died over the past week.

Of course, one is too many but isn't that number higher than usual?

[hobbit709]

12. Look at the long term effects of PTSD

in the Nam vets-who only had to be there for a year and how much it screwed them up. What do you think the effects are on troops who have had to go back 5 times? Damn the neocon bastards to the worst hell I can imagine.

[OneBlueSky]

14. and the worst part of the whole thing is that these are all the result of an ILLEGAL war . . .

that was started on completely false pretenses and based entirely on lies by the Bush administration . . .

what's even more tragic is that no one is a) holding them accountable for their illegal attacks on a sovereign nation, or b) stopping them from doing it again if they so choose . . .

disgusting . . .

[Nikki Stone1]

18. The Halliburton government doesn't care about these people

Thanks for posting.

[kiteinthewind]

20. Kick, in honor of my son's friend, Spc. Shawn P. Rankinen, who was killed on Wednesday.

Thanks for the post.
:cry:

[Jax]

21. It is my homepage

I am an Air Force brat with an all to young cousin's name engraved on a black wall in DC and a Dad who did not survive his out patient treatment for cancer of everything after his second extended tour of Southeast Asia...he had already done almost 30 year by then.

I do not know what to do as my calls and letters and marching have not done it yet but I am not giving up. As long as there has to be an icasualties page we have to keep on writing calling marching speaking up and out.

Excellent post.

Alyce, who will never give up on ending this oily bloodbath of lies.