Forgotten casualties | devastating report in Salon today...

[nostamj]

Forgotten casualties
Mentally scarred by the horrors they've endured in Iraq, many returning U.S. soldiers say the military isn't giving them the help they deserve.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Lynn Harris

<snip>

Eventually, a physician at Kentucky's Fort Knox, where he was on medical holdover until being allowed to go home for temporary convalescent leave last week, diagnosed him with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The medical report cited, among other symptoms: insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, disassociation, easy startling, quick temper, and keeping to his room for fear of hurting others, all of which were said to cause significant impairment in his "occupational and social functioning." He has been able to manage his symptoms somewhat with quite a bit of therapy and medication, but he still can't tolerate groups of people, or much food.

Just two weeks ago the soldier received word that his PTSD had received a 10 percent disability rating from the MEB/PEB. (He counters that his remaining symptoms and resulting disability, as described in a second medical report, match those described for a 30 percent rating.) He was also informed that both the PTSD and his slipped disks (rated at 20 percent) were considered chronic, not directly related to combat in Iraq -- where he wore and carried 75 pounds of equipment every day.

"I lived in Iraq, and before I left I was mentally and physically healthy," he says. "I come back and my back's broken and my mind's broken. They say it's not combat related. The processes that are supposed to be in place to help us aren't working. They're just not taking care of us."

<snip>

Now back at home and a civilian, Lemke is still doing his best, via word of mouth, to help soldiers who are confused or feeling mistreated by the system, or who are simply struggling with PTSD themselves. He even gets contacted by soldiers' wives who are desperate to find out "what's wrong" with their husbands. No matter what, he knows what his fellow soldiers have been through. "First I fought the war," Lemke says. "Then I had to fight a war for my treatment."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/09/22/ptsd/index.html

[SidDithers]

1. Salon has had some really good articles lately...

Thanks for the heads up.

Sid

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. This article also ran in today's Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/salon/story/0,14752,1310163,00.html

[G_j]

3. I wish Americans could realize how far and how deeply

the hellish tentacles of Bush's war go. We can't forget that every soldier has family and friends that are effected also.
The open wound of the Vietnam war still has not healed and this evil has only opened that wound further and inflicted new wounds that will be with us for generations. And it boggles the mind to think how the people of Iraq have been traumatized.

How I wish we could be entering the new millennium with a renewed commitment to peace instead of war.

If I believed in the anti-christ, there would be no doubt in my mind who this band of demonic war makers are.

I guess it hardly matters what one might call them. It simply suffices to say they are enemies of all that is good and hopeful.
One really has to wonder if it is not their conscious goal to drag the human race and all life on this planet into ruin and destruction.

[nostamj]

4. thing are so bad

i fear for my nieces and nephews.

the tasks before us to even bring things back to pre-bush standards are staggering... and then to move forward again?

[G_j]

5. sadly

we were at a crisis point before Bush.

oil dependence changing the climate * oceans deteriorating * world population stress * worldwide water and food shortages * AIDS *
corporate takeover of governments * corporate takeover of the world's resources * atomic weapons * deteriorating situation in Israel and the ME * wars, genocide and starvation in Africa * violence and oppression in Sothern/Central America * frogs mutating in every pond * deteriorating air * racism and hate * the Military Industrial Complex * the Prison Industrial complex * weapons, weapons and more weapons everywhere.....(this could go on for a thousand pages)

We needed a leader with wisdom and vision surpassing any in history.
Instead the Supreme Court gave us one whose mission is to plunge the world into further chaos and suffering and to undo the good that so many have devoted their lives to bringing about.


(shooo..just one of those days for me I guess!)