From The Boston Globe, 11/30/03:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/11/30/long_road_ahead_for_many_wounded_troops/
Long road ahead for many wounded troops
American hospital in Germany often just the first stop
By Aliza Marcus, Globe Correspondent
LANDSTUHL, Germany --
The dark gray military buses and ambulances arrive every day at the US
medical center here, carrying soldiers wounded in Iraq.
One with bad shrapnel wounds; another unconscious, with burns over 60
percent of his body; still others with gunshot wounds, maimed limbs,
open fractures, and spinal injuries.
Some of the soldiers will be patched up well enough that they can
return within a few weeks to their home bases, if not to their units
in Iraq.
But many face months of painful treatment at this facility in
southwestern Germany and elsewhere before they can even go home.
"A lot of them will recover physically, but I have to say it will take
them a long time to recover mentally," said Captain Paulette
Smith-Kimble, an Army Reserve nurse assigned to the intensive care
unit.
"They are carrying a lot of baggage because of fallen soldiers who
couldn't be saved or the fact that they can't go back [to their unit]
.. . . I have seen too many soldiers who lost limbs who can't go back,"
added the 34-year-old Boston native.
Seven months after President Bush declared the end of major combat
operations in Iraq, the casualties keep on coming.
The wounded often go unmentioned and unreported, their injuries
overshadowed by news of soldiers killed as they went about jobs
ranging from rooting out insurgents to patrolling neighborhoods and
rebuilding schools and power grids.
As of Friday, the Pentagon reported 434 soldiers had died in Operation
Iraqi Freedom, 298 of those in hostile attacks.
But for every soldier killed in hostile action, nearly 10 have been
wounded, according to official figures.
Hundreds of the 2,094 wounded since the start of the conflict end up
at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American
hospital outside the United States.
The transfer of the injured from Iraq is a tightly run operation, with
medical information sent ahead by computer and more highly specialized
medical teams ready to be called in from the United States when
necessary.
"Even before they take off we can see who is coming, what they need,
and we can make all the plans even before they arrive," said Major
Brent Johnson, a physician assigned to what the hospital calls its
Deployed Warrior Medical Management Center.
For the wounded, this may be only their first stop on the way to a
rehabilitation center or a hospital in the United States.
Hospital officials said they try to keep stays down to two weeks.
If patients cannot go back to duty by then, the goal is to move them
to a treatment center near where they are based or near their
families.
Specialist Guillermo Espinosa, 20, was brought to Landstuhl this
month.
He was just back from leave when the bus taking him to his unit in
Kirkuk on Nov. 13 was hit by an explosive device.
He was lucky; two others on the bus died.
"This time I was scared," said Espinosa, who received shrapnel wounds
to his legs.
He would like to return to his unit, but because he cannot put any
weight on his right leg he is "worthless," he said.
Instead, he will be released soon to his home Army base in Vincenza,
Italy.
In the buildup to the war, the number of hospital beds at the
Landstuhl center was doubled to about 300, while 600 reservists were
called in to help staff the hospital.
During the past few months, the number of beds has returned to normal,
while nearly half the reservists have been released.
With the US military now more entrenched in Iraq, injured soldiers
often can be treated there, reducing the number who need to be flown
out for treatment.
What has not changed, hospital staff members said, is the level of
acute cases.
The reliance of the insurgents in Iraq on improvised explosive devices
-- including roadside bombs or mortars set off by remote control --
has meant a lot of messy, contaminated wounds and heavily injured
limbs.
"We are seeing soldiers coming with missing eyes and limbs," said
Major Cathy M. Martin, chief nurse of the intensive care unit.
"You kind of develop a thick skin, but it still gets to you. It's
never easy."
______________________________________________________
And the question remains why has George W. Bush sent our husbands,
wives, brothers, sisters, friends, relatives, kids off to be killed
and maimed.
Harry
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
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