The Hidden Cost of Bush's War

[DUreader]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1114-03.htm


Concern about fatalities among Western forces in Iraq tends to
overlook another ghastly statistic: the spectacularly mounting
toll of the severely wounded. Andrew Buncombe reports on
America's invisible army of maimed and crippled servicemen
by Andrew Buncombe

It has been three months since Sergeant Mike Meinen lost his right leg in Iraq and
just two weeks since he received a new one. He is still getting used to the prosthetic,
still adjusting to its feel, the way it looks, the way in which his injury has changed his
life for ever. Remarkably, he refuses to be bitter ? either about the Iraqi guerrillas who
maimed him or about the people in Washington who sent him to war.

"I can't be upset for what has happened. We went to Iraq for a reason, there were
obviously going to be casualties," said 24-year-old Sgt Meinen, father of a
five-month-old daughter, Abigail, who was born when he was in Iraq. "I can't be upset
that I was among them... I am proud of what I have done."

Sgt Meinen, of the 43rd Combat Engineer Company, 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, is among thousands of
wounded soldiers who have returned from Iraq to uncertain
futures, months of difficult and often painful treatment and an
American public largely unaware that so many troops are
being injured every day. The reality is that, just as Iraqi
hospitals struggled to deal with the number of wounded
civilians during the invasion of the country, so military
hospitals in the US are now overflowing with wounded
Americans.

[54anickel]

1. Very sad indeed. I threw the remote at our TV just the other day

When Faux had this bean counter expert stating that the war wash less expensive than continuing the policy of containing Saddam. I was going to puke. It's all about money....and most of his costs for containment were being pulled out of his ass. I kept screaming, what about the lives, troops and Iraqis. Finally the anchor brings up the question of lives. Guys pulls numbers out of his ass again as to how many more would have died under Saddam (based upon what he did to the Kurds years ago). Then gave some lowball number of Iraqis killed so far in the war. That's when I hollered, nobody is counting and threw the remote! Luckily I didn't break anything.