Another Iraq war legacy: badly wounded U.S. troops

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051023/us_nm/iraq_casualties_wounded_dc_2;_ylt=Av52GfXBh5pdoY_t4HDTLV7mWMcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA--

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army Sgt. Joey Bozik remembers coming out of a coma at Walter Reed Army Medical Center not fully understanding why he was there.

"I knew something had happened to me, I just didn't know what," Bozik said.

He first inquired about his family, then about himself.

"I had an above-the-knee amputation of my right leg and a below-the-knee amputation on my left leg. I had a below-the-elbow amputation on my right arm. And on my left hand, my thumb and pinkie were fractured and the metacarpals in my hand were fractured and I fractured my wrist," Bozik said.

<snip>

Bozik, a 27-year-old from Wilmington, North Carolina, recounted what happened to him, as he used his left hand and a prosthetic right hand to pedal a stationary hand bike in the physical therapy room at Walter Reed. His 25-year-old wife, Jayme, stood watchfully behind.

[Solly Mack]

1. I had stopped at a Stop sign on my way one day when I noticed

a soldier cutting his grass and a little boy watching his father. Something was different about this soldier and it took me a minute to figure it out. He was missing a leg and an arm.

Traffic forgotten, tears flowing, anger building...the hate rising

I feel that same hate now

[depakid]

7. I saw a soldier and his wife on light rail

One side of his face was badly burned and he was missing an arm. I heard them talking about seeing his doc at the VA-

That the media has largely ignored the consequences of this illegal war is something that we should NEVER forgive and NEVER forget.

Personally, if I ever see any "media personality" who I believe to be complicit in this- or recognize any executive out and about or in a social setting, I fully intend to call them out. Hopefully, I can manage to be clever, but no matter what, I will be insulting.

[Bigmack]

2. Somebody HAS to say it....

.. in every one of these threads... might as well be me.

All of that sacrifice.. all that suffering... FOR NOTHING!! FOR GREED!!

If these people had been so terribly wounded actually defending us from a real threat, at least they - and we - would have that cold comfort.

When.. not if, but when.. this country turns its back on those wounded men and women, an Ann Coulter wannabe will say that they are why we lost Iraq.

We need to get out of there... TODAY! Let the poor Iraqis have their civil war and start to put their lives in order.

This country owes Bozik and all his comrades more than we can ever repay... but we should at least try.

[mike_c]

4. agreed, all in vain-- the best way to honor their sacrifice...

...is to prosecute the madmen whose ambition and avarice put them in harms way for politics, power, and profit. Then their personal fortunes should be seized and put into an account to pay the travel expenses of every wounded, disabled veteran of the war against Iraq-- including the Iraqis-- who want to visit them in prison once a year or so to torment them. Fifteen minutes a year with Dick Cheney in a prison visiting room-- even with a sheet of bullet proof glass in between-- could be damned cathartic.

[leftchick]

5. just like Vietnam

a war based on LIES to enrich a few and killed and maimed thousands.

who says this is not like Vietnam?

[lovuian]

3. We don't have the numbers on this one but its in the Tens of

thousands!!!

[callady]

6. Inside Walter Reed-The Horrible Reality of the Iraq War

Article & Essay: The Costs of War at Walter Reed

Inside Walter Reed Army Hospital is the horrible reality of the Iraq War, a reality that few Americans see, and fewer want to see.
By Stewart Nusbaume

The tough talking lions of the Bush Administration proclaimed “shock and awe” would destroy the Iraqi will to fight and then it would be a simple “cakewalk.” So the cocky civilians unleashed the “mother” of all air assaults on Baghdad and then our strutting commander in chief -- decked out in a fine flight suit -- proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished.”

But the flight-suit President dodged the Vietnam War, hiding in the Air National Guard’s “Champagne Unit,” strongly supporting the war from Texas. The Vice-President “had other options,” although he insisted other Americans had no option but to fight the war. The Secretary of Defense enrolled in Princeton University instead of the Korean War; after the war he enrolled in the Navy. All the hawkish Neocons were too busy arguing for the Vietnam War to actually fight in that war. Shame, they missed their “noble” causes. So when it came to Iraq, none of these men had a clue about the will to fight.

I see in the halls of Walter Reed hospital soldiers with leg braces and neck supports, soldiers with faces slashed by bombs and stitched up by doctors. Soldiers with legs terribly mangled, soldiers with no legs -- amputees with short stumps, with long stumps, without any stumps since entire limbs are missing. A man walks by without an arm. I suddenly travel back in time to another war, to another hospital when I was one of those young men without a limb. But the human carnage and waste in Walter Reed is too overwhelming to escape for more than a flash of time.

At the Army’s flagship medical facility, where thousands of wounded soldiers pass through, there is no political spin, no media filter, no presidential lies, and no patriotism without cost as there is in America. There are only the wounded and mangled from Iraq. There is the ground zero for ugly war reality. For these men and women there was no safe “Champagne Unit,” no other options, no Ivy League hiding, no just talking while others did the fighting. At Walter Reed there are not Chickenhawks.
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1190&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0&POSTNUKESID=33636a44788c3049b2f8042efa985de4

I posted this in GD and not too many took interest. Strange.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5137797

Thanks for your post-Nominated

[loyalsister]

8. War and disability

War has been one of the driving forces behind medical and rehabilitation technology.
It's a vicious circle, however. That technology ultimately creates more people with disabilities.
Wars have had their most influence on the value of people who have disabilities. Throughout history, people whose injuries were aquired in a war have been valued, and their disabilities were less likely to marginalize them. That have been efforts to counteract that problem through history as veterans groups have teamed up with civilian groups in the pursuit of rights.

[Sabriel]

9. Thanks for the repost, lc

Maybe more constant reminders would help us get out of there NOW.

Recommended.

[Just Me]

10. I chose to become "numb" after seeing a "KID" uglied by this war.

I confess: I did not have the strength to bear those feelings. They were bigger than me. That kid who was uglied,...was strong,...so much stronger than me. :cry: He shouldered a burden towards which I HAD to become numb,...because I could not handle it,...and I wasn't even the fucking victim!!! I feel like shit.