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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

The casualties of war
(THOMAS M. DeFRANK, DAILY NEWS, June 13, 2004)
For every flag-draped coffin the American people aren't allowed to see coming home from Iraq, there are at least four other casualties of war...Thirteen months after President Bush proclaimed Mission Accomplished, the wounded from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom still stream into the massive U.S. military hospital nestled among the pine forests of southwestern Germany. More than 15,000 war zone patients have already cycled through Landstuhl, nearly 13,000 from Iraq. An estimated 4,000 are classified as battle casualties; the rest have been treated for bunions and backaches, asthma and appendicitis, testicular cancer and a recent rash of viral pneumonia cases. The staff of 1,853 has tended to patients from 33 countries, including the victims of the April terror bombing of the UN mission in Baghdad, and a young Polish soldier admitted last week with burns over 80% of his body. "They just keep coming," says one staffer, who has gotten used to the double shifts and 60-hour weeks. "It never stops." The largest U.S. medical facility overseas, Landstuhl stabilizes the seriously injured so they can be flown to stateside medical hospitals like Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, or the Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md. Patients usually stay from three days to two weeks depending on the severity of their condition. Several hundred soldiers have suffered life-altering traumatic wounds: irreversible brain damage, facial mutilation, ruptured eardrums. A handful have been permanently blinded or will never walk again. Lt. Col. Ronald Place, the chief surgeon, says about 150 soldiers have lost limbs. Yet by every account, the emotional resilience of the victims of a controversial war is astounding. "I am absolutely, constantly amazed by their good attitude," says Col. Rhonda Cornum, Landstuhl's commander. "You just want to cry and kiss them." "I had tears in my eyes 15 times today," Army Lt. Gen. John Sylvester, chief of staff for the U.S. European Command, told reporters after a recent visit. Despite the horrendous injuries some soldiers suffer, Cornum credits protective vests for saving countless lives. "If we didn't have such great body armor," she said, "many of our patients would be KIAs [killed in action], not amputees." But Cornum knows that's cold comfort to young lives changed forever. "Learning to live with it goes on for the rest of your life," said chief of chaplains Col. Eric Holmstrom, a reservist from Exton, Pa. "They don't need magic answers because there aren't any." For some questions, however, not even the most rigorous professional training can provide an answer like the one from a young soldier engaged to be married. "Where do I put my wedding ring?" he plaintively asked, looking at the place where his hands used to be. "You just try to comfort them as best you can," one anguished staffer said, "and then you go somewhere and cry your heart out."

[COMMENT] *****This is the reality of war that Duh-bya does not want you to know about. The reality that war is not pretty and war is not healthy and war is not kind. The reality of war is that it forever changes the lives of those who are chosen to fight for the cowards who do not want to get their own hands dirty. But, that's just this old Curmudgeon's opinion******

posted by A Curmudgeon 3:22 PM