The Forgotton Wounded of Iraq

I thought I'd post this great article, especialy for the pro-war among us.

The physical and psychological battles from the war in Iraq will rage on for decades, deeply impacting the lives of citizens in both our countries.

www.truthdig.com...

This article is soooo on the money, hopefuly it will make you think beyond the flag waving, we're saving the World, blind patriat BS. Maybe not?
If not then I invite you to go and experience it for yourself, or just blow your own arm off and save some time, You'll get the idea, somewhat. While you're at it go get an Anthrax shot, garaunteed to get you a disability cheque in a few yrs (GW Illness). Will it ever end?

Fight War, not Wars!

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[edit on 20/1/2006 by Mirthful Me]

I find surprising the lack of attention that our wonder from Iraq and Afghanistan are getting.

Are they like a secret that most be kept in the back burner?

While we should be happy to know that so far has not been "Many casualties" actually passing the mark of two thousand.

The amount of soldiers wonder in batter is on going.

Only on rare occasions you get to heard for one or two of them and usually on some PO campaign.

Very sad.

Thanx Marge, and I think the lack of interest in this post proves the point.

Nobody cares about the troops after they have done their 'duty'. Cast aside to suffer their 'wounds' as if they didn't exist.

I guess troops at war is more glamorous than troops in hostpitals.
Once wounded they are cast aside like pawns taken in a chess game.

This is interesting but not so surprising, I guess that the lackof interest accounts for many people's opinion on this board that wars are for fighting, and soldiers are (not soley, but largely...) for dying.

This the impression I have gleamed from certain posts anyway...


Q

I for one appreciate our troops efforts and what they have went through. Also let's not forget about their families too, especially those who have lost loved ones serving. Whether you agree with this war or not, and I do not, we MUST always defend and support our troops. It is truly sad that many of them have been forgotten by citizens and our government alike. This has happened with Gulf War vets too. My cousin's husband served in the Gulf War in '91 and is suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. His health has went to pot and he has to constantly fight the VA to get help. Not right is it?


---warpfactor9

This country pays lip service to supporting our soldiers, but just like the lip service it pays to 'children being our future' when it comes to the bottom line ($$) the soldiers and the children can take a hike. If they're not currently productive member$ of $ociety, they are a burdon to be cast aside.

Off the Front Lines and Forgotten

August 29, 2005

When I met Thomas at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he was still visibly shaken by the experience. On his "bad days," he locks himself in his room. "I usually don't talk to anyone. I usually cry and get depressed. No one sees it because I isolate myself."

Like tens of thousands of veterans, when Thomas returned to the states, he attended a class about federal benefits. "They send you to a three-hour course and give you a book. If you don't ask questions, you won't get the answers," he says. "I'm still trying to get my claim. I filed it in December. If it wasn't for my cousin, I wouldn't know what to do."

VA Watchdog.org

"We have a tradition in this country...we send off young people to fight these wars. Stuff happens to them. They lose their arms and legs. And we just discard them."

No wonder people don't want to join the service. I wouldn't if I knew I would be discarded after I was used up. And if we have access to this information, imagine what we DON'T know!

Oh, but you can bet that Congress will get their paychecks on time and that their lifestyle will not suffer.

You have voted ANOK for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

Thank you ANOK for reminding us of those who have returned scarred from this was as well as from our previous wars such as Vietnam.
All I can say is that it is up to the individual American and the groups that they belong to to lend thier support to our wounded heros.
I do that in my own small way by offering those returnees free dinners with their families at my restaurant. I lend time at the Local VA etc.
We all need to pitch in together to show them that they are not forgotten. That their sacrifice was and still is meaningful.
Let us not treat these fighters like we so shamefuly did to those returning from Vietnam!

Many concentrate on US-UK troop casualties as just being the deaths, the US military death toll, edging closer and closer to 3,000, while the UK military death toll nears 100.

What is forgotten by the vast majority of the media and public are the injured, wounded and maimed, very much more than the amount of the dead, who have not only suffered physical harm but psychological too.

Indeed, psychological maiming is as traumatic as physical.

And we are only talking of the soldiers....what of the Iraqis themselves.....such horror.

I disagree with the war in Iraq, but I salute the soldiers who went, for they are braver and more of men and women than those who sit in the thrones of power, throwing the idea of 'war' about with little of the consequences involved or without any danger of they fighting alongside the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers they send to fight their wars.

That was a very Informative Article to Read!



Often People Forget the Fact that there are REAL People fighting and dying and being wounded and scared for Life in Wars. They just see the Spectacle on their TV, and Enjoy the Fireworks.

The President sure does not show any Big Compassion towards the Veterans.

I love the Poem, written at the End of the Original Article:

I am the living death
The memorial day on wheels
I am your yankee doodle dandy
Your John Wayne come home
Your Fourth of July firecracker
Exploding in the grave

[edit on 20/1/06 by Souljah]

I just read the above link and I must say it is haunitng.
I rememaber how the Vietnam vets were treated when they got home ffrom fighting for their country--it was not our shining moment as a country.

But with this war, we seem to have forgotten about the wounded completely.
Is it because we don't have the daily war footage on the daily 6:00 news? Is it because the numbers are less and it bothers our collective grief less?
Or are we just to busy with the pace of life in the 21st century.

Souljah quoted the author's poem at the end of the cited story by Ron Kovic, but this to me...well, it says volumes:

All the conditioning, all the discipline, shouting, screaming, bullying and threatening verbal abuse of their boot camp drill instructors have now disappeared in this one instant, in this one damaging blow. All they want to do now is stay alive, keep breathing, somehow get out of this place anyway they can. People are dying all around them, someone has been shot and killed right next to them and behind them but all they can really think of at this moment is staying alive.

You don’t think of God, or praying, or even your mother or your father. There is no time for that. Your heart is pounding. Blood is seeping out. You will always go back to that day, that moment you got hit, the day you nearly died yet somehow survived. It will be a day you will never forget—when you were trapped in that open area and could not move, when bullets were cracking all around you, when the first Marine tried to save you and was shot dead at your feet and the second, a black Marine—whom you would never see again and who would be killed later that afternoon—would carry you back under heavy fire.

www.truthdig.com...

Thanks, ANOK, for bringing this article to our attention

Anok,
Thank you for bringing this up. It *needs* to be brought up. Great article.

I think of the war wounded pretty much every day, but I don't talk about them anymore. I don't blog about them anymore, either. Nobody wants to hear.

I was getting physical therapy a few months ago, and shared PT time with a sergeant. I didn't what to say to him. "Thank you for serving" just doesn't cut it. And it didn't seem appropriate to say, "I don't support this war, but thank you for volunteering to defend our country... It's a rare and noble act."
It just sounded so self-righteous in my head.

I can't bring the subject up without making people angry. It's such a touchy subject for so many.

Great replies guys, thank you!!

I guess I was wrong when I said nobody here cares, I apreciate you all taking the time.

Regensturm, you are right soldiers are not the only victims of this or any war.
Really the wounding or killing of civilians is worse than the soldiers, civilians are completely unprepared to deal with war conditions.

What of the families of GW illness victims who are also having GW illness symptoms...

Many of the soldiers who have this illness have not received a proper diagnosis and therefore have not obtained any treatment. Families of the soldiers are also getting ill and facing the same nightmare. Military base hospitals and Veterans Hospitals are turning most of them away and not providing treatment. As with CFS and fibromyalgia, the military does not have a medical category for GWS and many of these soldiers are classified as having an "undiagnosed illness", discharged from the military without health benefits and without compensation.

www.ncchem.com...

Will family members ever get compensated? If you have to quit work and go on disability it's tough to survive. It barely covers some ppls rent.

Not to mention the Iraqi civi's killed, maimed, disabled, made homeless.

Busymind, you are right nobody wants to hear this, it disturbs their digestion.
But it needs to be heard, ppl need to realise the real cost of this war and whether it's worth it.
How many ppl have actualy been victims of terrorism, compared to how many are victims of the war on it?
I doubt I need to show any figures it's pretty obvious to me.
There will be victims in this war long after the threat of terrorism go's away, and we know it never will. Terrorism will never go away as long as there are tiranical governments fueling the disent. Don't get me wrong I'm not siding with the terrorists but then again what terrorists? Where are they?
Have you seen one? I don't believe 9-11 was terrorists.

I believe this war is about encouraging terrorism not stopping it, didn't the powers that be have a population reduction agenda?

To me it's the wounded, sick and families of the wounded, sick and dead who are the real victims of this war, not the dead soldiers. The dead have moved on, they suffer no more. Those left behind are the ones we should be thinking about.

Gulf War one lasted 7 months, but those 7 months became a lifetime for the wounded and families of the wounded.

And what have we gained? I only see loss.

Mod Edit: New External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 20/1/2006 by Mirthful Me]

Originally posted by ANOK
Great replies guys, thank you!!

I guess I was wrong when I said nobody here cares, I apreciate you all taking the time.

Regensturm, you are right soldiers are not the only victims of this or any war.
Really the wounding or killing of civilians is worse than the soldiers, civilians are completely unprepared to deal with war conditions.

What of the families of GW illness victims who are also having GW illness symptoms...

Many of the soldiers who have this illness have not received a proper diagnosis and therefore have not obtained any treatment. Families of the soldiers are also getting ill and facing the same nightmare. Military base hospitals and Veterans Hospitals are turning most of them away and not providing treatment. As with CFS and fibromyalgia, the military does not have a medical category for GWS and many of these soldiers are classified as having an "undiagnosed illness", discharged from the military without health benefits and without compensation.

www.ncchem.com...

Will family members ever get compensated? If you have to quit work and go on disability it's tough to survive. It barely covers some ppls rent.

Not to mention the Iraqi civi's killed, maimed, disabled, made homeless.

As I said, it's horror.

On a side note, my sister has CFS. The years of discrimination she went through by doctors, lack of diagnosis was shocking.

GWS Sufferers, no doubt have gone through the same.

But added to this, the sacrifice of their health for what is fighting in the name of their country is unrecognised and dismissed, and they themselves are dismissed.

Discarded, the soldiers put away when no use is needed of them anymore.

Terrible.

I just finished reading the article off of another forum's link. It's right on the money.