Casualty Ward, ...Trauma Cases From Iraq War -ABC

[Rose Siding]

L A N D S T U H L, Germany, Aug. 8, 2004 — It looks like that opening scene from the TV comedy M*A*S*H. But Hawkeye and Pierce, Radar, and Clinger don't exist here.

These are real doctors and nurses at the Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany, facing horrors seldom seen by the American public — already over 12,000 battlefield casualties from Iraq.

Their patients speak with tension in their faces. Not even the pain killers can stop all of the throbbing of their injuries. I am amazed that they want to talk about what happened.

"Some shrapnel went through my eye," says Staff Sgt. Daniel Beaty.

Another injured soldier, Cpl. Jeff Swaser says: "The shrapnel came in through my side, punctured my lungs, fractured a couple of my ribs, and broke up into little pieces and put holes into various organs."

He even manages a smile, a combination of sneer and laughter that he had escaped death................

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/landstuhl_040808-1.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. kicked and nominated n/t

[Rose Siding]

2. This one was hard to read.

"compassion fatigue..." What an awful term to have to create.

[Catt03]

3. Yes..I do some work with compassion fatigue

it can become a secondary trauma where the person giving the care becomes traumatized also.

What I want to know is WHY WE seldom hear about the wounded. For instance what is the wounded count?

[ramapo]

4. Out of sight, out of mind

You can't even call these soldiers America's forgotten. There has been virtually no recognition of the wounded and little of the dead.

Our culture has marched on...no time for this stuff on the nightly news... and then a mention at best

[Rose Siding]

5. There are counts here

http://icasualties.org/oif/

5,976 total "wounded" reported by DoD, but I remember an article from a couple of months ago that had different stats. Maybe the difference is in how they define what wounded means. The link is busted to the piece I had, but the numbers here are similar-

Reporter Finds Out Pentagon Hiding The Real Numbers
By Mark Benjamin, United Press International, 12/19/2003
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The total number of wounded soldiers and medical evacuations from the war in Iraq is nearing 11,000, according to new Pentagon data provided in response to a request from United Press International.

The military has made 8,581 medical evacuations from Operation Iraqi Freedom for non-hostile causes in addition to the 2,273 wounded -- a total of 10,854, according to the new data. The Pentagon says that 457 troops have died.

The Pentagon's casualty update for Operation Iraqi Freedom listed on its Web site, however, does not reflect thousands of the evacuations.
.....
According to data released to UPI from the Army Medical Command, the military as of Nov. 30 made 8,581 medical evacuations for bone injuries, surgeries, brain problems, heart illness, mental problems and other non-hostile causes.

http://www.williambowles.info/gispecial/gi-157.html

*I didn't find an independent link and can't vouch for the site

[Catt03]

7. Thanks

Is the author of this piece in the military? I sounds like it, don't you think?

[Rose Siding]

17. I can't tell

His byline is UPI and it's just posted on this other guy's page, is how it looks.

[saigon68]

6. Wait unil they arm wrestle the VA for benefits

USED UP--- THROWN AWAY

[jwirr]

30. Wrestling VA for benefits

If no one else has told the wounded that they will have trouble proving things like combat related wounds because their records have been mysteriously lost then I will. Vietnam Vets came back time and again to hear that their records were lost. This means that they cannot collect combat related benefits. If the wounded can they should obtain copies of ALL of there medical records. A friend took his original records from the office when he left. When he went to the veteran's service officer in his county he was told that they would do all they could for him --- then he showed them his records. The Veteran's Service Officer grinned and said, "We are going to win this one!"

[spooked]

8. Imagine the heartbreak that their mothers & fathers across America

are feeling right now...Do you think they are going to vote for Bush?


"We have to deal with very difficult things," Col. Roth says, "like young kids who just lost their arm, and being understanding when they're mad, or calling up that mother of a little girl whose brain is irreparably damaged and is never going to be the same again."

‘Cost of Caring’

Another doctor, Lt. Col. Larry Lepler, has just made such a call to a distraught mother back in the U.S. He is fighting back tears. I ask him what kind of emotion he was dealing with on the other end of that phone line.

He pauses and takes a deep breath.

"Ah, the mother was crying. It's difficult for me," he says, his eyes watering.

"None of us are going to leave here the people we were when we came here," Lt. Col. Harvey adds. "There's a tremendous cost of caring."

[section321]

18. Front page of the LA Times today....

"Disabled Vets Fight Injuries, Red Tape"

Its the story of 21 year old Jay Briseno of Manassas Park. He was wounded in Baghdad in June 2003. He lives on a respirator and barely moves.

I haven't read the whole story, but it was on the front page.

[LibDemAlways]

19. According to the article, Jay

is being cared for at home by his parents after VA officials told them to "give up" on him. The VA provides money for his care 19 hours a day. The family must take care of the other 5 completely on their own. The father has quit his job. The parents sleep on a futon next to his bed. His teenage sisters have given up their activities to help care for him.

He is paralyzed from a wound in the back and is on a respirator. He must be turned 19 times a day to avoid bedsores. And, the VA admits that soldiers with injuries as severe as his are evacuated from Iraq "regularly."

There are no words.....

[reprobate]

29. Of course there are words.

The words are:

"George W. Bush, you stand accused of treason. How do you plead?"

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. Here's some words!

George W. Bush, You MURDERING LYING MONSTER! HOW DO YOU F**KING SLEEP AT NITE? I don't believe in Hell however in your case I wish I did.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Iraq becomes an abbatoir

If you haven't seen the word "abbatoir" before, it's French for "slaughterhouse". Us pompous intellectuals likes ta use it.

But enough comic relief. The story itself goes beyond sad. Working on the assumption that we have slightly over 100,000 military personnel in Iraq (and about 25,000 administrative non-military), the casualty rate is approaching -- and may have exceeded -- 10%.

Ten percent of all soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines sent to Iraq are being injured severely enough to be taken out of combat. I believe that this level is unprecedented in any major theater of combat in any war fought by the USA since the Civil War.

I already posted a little about it at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x66734

In addition, casualties from the indiscriminant use of depleted uranium (as a shell-casing hardening material) will take upwards of 20 years to develop. Particles of the metal, non-pathogenic in themselves, lodged in the body will emit low levels of ionizing radiation. In some unknown percentage of people affected, these particles will produce cancers and other degenerative diseases. If that percentage is, say, 0.1%, it will be tragic but "managable". But if that percentage is itself 5%, 10%, or more, it will unleash a long-term secondary epidemic of wartime injuries.

And the effects of the war on the Iraqi citizenry are as yet incalculable.

I never fully trust my numbers, but I know that there are many around here who actually do keep figures of stats like the number of military personnel stationed in Iraq, depleted uranium pathogenicity studies, and so on. Don't just feel free to scrutinize my numbers -- please, let me know if I really have any cause for concern. Because with one combat veteran in ten returning to the USA with significant damage from Operation Re-(S)Elect Bush, we are facing a larger disabled veteran problem than we've ever faced before -- in an era where a bastard mutant version of Free Enterprise is being used to deprive a nation (including its non-officer veterans) of basic health care.

--bkl

[tlcandie]

10. The tremendous cost of caring....

Snipped from the original thread's link:

<snip>
"None of us are going to leave here the people we were when we came here," Lt. Col. Harvey adds. "There's a tremendous cost of caring."
<snip>

What strikes me to the core is this one thought: the cost of caring. This cost is what most people in this world do not want to be bothered with any more.

The cost to care takes away from the continually ramped up and overly booked schedules people have in their ordinary day to day lives. First there's the job or jobs. Then there's the never-ending daily list of things that must be done in order to function. Then comes the family time which has been summarized as quality not quantity. And last but not least, there is the time left over for self and/or others. The sad part is that by the time you get to the end you are scrapping the bottom of the barrel and doing good to get in six hours of sleep before starting the ritual all over again.

The cost to care takes away possible money in an economic climate that continues to spiral into an abyss. With two income earning people per famliy working one to two jobs each just to make ends meet, where is that extra that could go to help others who do not even have the basics? Besides worrying about living day to day, there's the children's future to think about; the futures of their immediate family; sicknesses; unexpected catastrophes; their retirement futures and more! Even if they wanted to help someone else, where's the time to research that 'perfect' organization to donate to that follows your principles, ideas and is trustworthy?

The cost to care takes away emotional energy from the constant fear that is being ramped up by our government and spread like a cancer causing virus throughout the nation every day, minute by minute. Emotions are too expensive and it takes time to get past the propaganda to find what is real, unreal, or surreal. Today's climate doesn't allow time to be spent on emotional issues. Hence, it's easier to just go with the flow and not think about all that doesn't seem to effect one in life's day to day activities. It's easier to listen to ten minutes of some quick news channel than to scan the channels of television or the pages of a newspaper for what might be a glimpse of truth. Maybe it's just easier to not even watch or listen to the news as it's too emotionally draining and disturbing when you feel helpless to change your own life much less someone elses' or the world's.

Eventually, the cost of care determines the state of ones soul. It's hard to look into your soul when you are hounded by guilt and shame because you are too tired, too poor, too emotionally drained to find time to help anyone else much less yourself. The soul can become lost, separated, splintered, darkened, dejected, hardened, bitter, uncaring, resentful, hateful, cold, evil. A person becomes susceptible to cults, fundamentalists, organizations that would have you just drop your money in the plate and don't worry your pretty little head about it...let us do the driving they say and just have faith! Meanwhile, they are driving you off the edge of a cliff into another abyss.

As an individual, a people, a nation, a world, how do we re-connect again to caring and the thought that it is less costly in the long term to care now, today, this very minute, than it is to shrink from the money, time, energy it will take to overcome the negative issues about the cost of caring? How to we take off the blinders? How do we see again? How do we speak again? How do we heal? How do we become one again? How do we step out of this blackhole that is sucking us into the abyss of a world gone mad without caring people...without love?

I have no answers. There will be no miracles. It will be as it is always has been each person's responsibility to determine their path, their choices, their truth, their right, and their action towards making their lives, their neighborhood, their nation, their world a caring, loving environment in which all beings desire to partake and celebrate life.

If even the tiniest spark of truth and love exists within a heart it can't help but spread! Speak truth to power. Don't be burdened by false guilt or shame. Do what you can this minute, this second and move on knowing you can only work within your sphere of influence as your body, your energy, your mind, your heart dictates. That is all anyone can expect of another human being. If each of us could find one caring thing to do once a day that would be a whole lot of love and caring folks!


Sorry for the rant... this article just touched something inside of me.

[Rose Siding]

11. thank you

Your words help. ...no miracles...we do what we can.

[spooked]

12. They have spread so much hatred

it will take a whole lot of love to right all of the wrongs...Thanks for such a heartfelt reminder...love is the goal.

[tlcandie]

13. Thanks for the nice words.. both of you!

:hug:

[ninkasi]

21. Your rant

touched something inside of me. Thank you for expressing your feelings, they show true compassion.

[Karenina]

24. Each time I logged on today

I came back to this thread to read your post... Thanks.

[tlcandie]

26. Thank you Ninkasi and Karenina!

:hug:

[laruemtt]

14. god help the u.s. when

the karma hits - and it most certainly will. for every action......

we'll all be paying for the actions of that our little boy king.

[spooked]

15. recent article: GI's Will Come Home To A Slow Death (Depleted Uranium)

http://www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01.htm

The situation over the use of Depleted Uranium in Iraq is grave:

"Moret watched America wage a short and apparently victorious Gulf War. In just a few short weeks, and after only 110 American casualties, we routed Iraq from Kuwait. But the true toll of this war upon our young servicemen and women occurred over the next decade. Of the 700,000 troops who served in the region, 267,000 suffered from some form of disability. Not only that, but some soldiers "infected" their spouses with disabilities similar to their own. Or they suffered the tragedy of having a child born with birth defects. Some victory, huh?

Our military has lobbed more than 500 tons of DU munitions on Afghanistan. Professor Yagasaki has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the "atomicity equivalent to 83,000 Nagasaki bombs." This fact he presented to the World Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg in October 2003. The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 equals nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. Just as the Gulf War vets and their families have been imperiled by their service in Gulf War I, those veterans about to return from the Iraq war will undoubtedly face similar consequences.

The population-devastation politics of DU continues to this day...
The stories related to birth defects are heart-breaking. Some Iraqi babies are born with eyeballs the size of lemons protruding from their eye sockets. Some babies have no brains. Some babies are born without any skin. Some pregnancies, although carried close to full term, result in a birth of only a lump of flesh, with no discernable torso, limbs or head or facial features.

Our soldiers are coming home from our Middle East "adventures" with bodies pushed to the breaking point. On KPFA radio in June, it was revealed that of nine returning servicemen to New York City, six tested positive for unusually high levels of radioactivity in their bodies. Those with the highest levels already feel its effects. They are mind-numbingly tired; they have rashes, muscle aches and pains, and their nervous systems are impaired.

[tlcandie]

16. Extremely sad.. thanks spooked! eom

[llmart]

20. Meanwhile, did you see the big fishie that Jenna caught????

n/t

[A_Possum]

22. Thanks for the posts in this thread

I going for a week to Wyoming, and will be wearing my Kerry buttons on my hat. I've been trying to prepare an answer/attitude if I get questioned or harassed. I'm so angry that I know I have to think ahead or I'll end up looking like a furious red-faced mute if anyone tries the swiftboat smears on me.

However, now I know what I can say. I care about those guys in Iraq, and Kerry cares about them too because he knows first-hand what kind of hell they are going through.

I can say that with honesty and feeling.

[Bandit]

23. Is this almost an entire Division that is officially out of commission?

I know they are from different units but the amount of men is equal to an entire division isn't it?

[DaveSZ]

25. We're turnin' the corner folks!

.

[BrotherBuzz]

32. Yep, an entire Division!

You'd think the armchair chickenhawks could grasp that image...NOT!

[number6]

27. already over 12,000 battlefield casualties from Iraq.

:(:(:(:( :mad: at *

[shamanstar]

28. npr story

npr had a story about these us military hospitals in germany that were literally keeping alive people with brain death and near brain death to keep the casualty numbers lower.

[Tsiyu]

31. It Is No Surprise

that * is forcing troops into extended duty in Iraq until after the election. He does not want the truth told.

But military families know the truth. Those who know them know the truth. "Everything hidden will be revealed," according to the words the freeperthugs and the Repuke chickenhawks claim are sacred.

What an evil man Bush is, to send our kids to be mangled for his own greed and adoration of power and then to tell us we should all run to our hidey-holes every ten minutes when his poll numbers go down.

If we are SO vulnerable, bring our people home, you smug, psycho Repukes