The Arizona Daily Star has been notified of your theft of their
copywrited material Harry, and your headers have been included

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 22:53:54 GMT, Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

From The Arizona Daily Star, 11/16/03:

http://www.dailystar.com/star/today/31116NIRAQ-WOUNDED.html

Wounded U.S. soldiers travel many tough paths to recovery

Knight Ridder

By Neela Banerjee
THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON -

Every hour of every day for the last four months, Spc. Robert Acosta
has thought of the moment when the grenade slipped from his fingers.

On the early evening of July 13, Acosta, of the Army's 1st Armored
Division, was riding in the passenger seat of a Humvee toward the
gates of the Baghdad airport.

Something entered through his window, flew by his face trailing a
ribbon of smoke, hit the windshield and landed next to the driver.

Acosta grabbed the grenade with his right hand, but as he turned to
throw it out the window, he dropped it between his legs.

He picked it up again.

Somewhere between his ankles and knees, the grenade exploded in his
hand.

"It was gone, it just disintegrated," he said of his hand.

The driver of the Humvee was unhurt.

Not only did the blast destroy Acosta's hand, it also shattered his
legs, the left one now mended with a steel plate and skin grafts and
the hole in his heel almost closed.

In place of his right hand and part of his forearm, he wears a
prosthesis that ends in a two-pronged claw.

"I think I should be dead right now," Acosta, 20, said one recent
afternoon, resting from doing pull-ups in physical therapy at the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center here.

"But I feel like I failed myself. If I hadn't dropped it, I would
still have my hand."

Reminded that he had saved his friend's life, Acosta stared straight
ahead and remained silent.

(The Defense Department said on Friday that the number of American
casualties in Iraq had passed 9,000, United Press International
reported. From March 19 to Oct. 30, the Surgeon General's office said,
more than 400 service members died, 1,967 were wounded and 6,861 were
evacuated for medical conditions unrelated to combat.)

Dozens of amputees

Some of the most seriously wounded come through Walter Reed.

Already, 58 amputees have been treated at Walter Reed, 47 with major
single-limb removals and 11 with multiple-limb amputations.

For all the numbing similarity of the ambushes with rocket-propelled
grenades and roadside bombs that wounded the soldiers now at Walter
Reed, each has begun to piece his life back together in a different
way, into a shape he never expected.

There is Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, a reservist from Abilene, Texas, who
is determined to become a firefighter as he had planned.

There is Spc. Edward Platt of Harrisburg, Pa., who focuses his hope
and unremitting anger on the use of a prosthetic leg he has just
received.

And there is Acosta of Santa Ana, Calif., who remains haunted by
regret.

Quick evacuation

When soldiers are ambushed in Iraq, they are rapidly evacuated, their
vehicles quickly towed and their plight boiled down into the day's
tally of dead and wounded.

"When we get injured, all it says is 'one soldier wounded,' " Acosta
said, echoing others at Walter Reed.

"Not that a soldier has lost an arm or a leg, or how hard that is."

The wounded stay at first in the main hospital building at Walter
Reed, about eight miles north of downtown Washington.

Once the threat of infection and the need for serious surgeries have
passed, they go home for several weeks before returning to the
hospital campus.

The wounded are comforted to find others who knew towns like Hilla,
Ramadi and Tikrit and who lost a part of themselves on some identical,
stunningly hot Iraqi day.

"I hate this place so much, but all these guys, we form a bond,"
Acosta said.

"Talking to Vietnam vets, that's cool. But it's not like talking to
someone who's been through Iraq."

_________________________________________________

They're gonna hafta live with these crippling wounds for the rest of
their lives. Bush won't. When he's tossed out, he'll just go back to
has ranch and keep rakin' in his ill-gotten millions.

Harry

(Situation in Iraq) `better than you probably think,'

Georgie W. AWOL Bush

"My answer is: Bring them on."

Georgie W. AWOL Bush

"There will be no retreat."

Georgie W. AWOL Bush

"Americans are not the running kind."

Georgie W. AWOL Bush

Ex-Lawmaker Says He Helped Bush Join the Guard in Vietnam War
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/092799wh-gop-bush.html

Texan Questioned on Role in Helping Bush Join National Guard
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/092899wh-gop-bush.html

While Americans were dying in Vietnam and demonstrating in America,
our hawkish President did neither.
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=216

Harry