After the War, the Ward Wounded in Iraq, Soldiers Stop at Walter Reed Hosp

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16510-2003Jul19.html?nav=hptop_tb

The taxicab pulls up to the curb of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Pfc. Garth Stewart slides into the back seat. A nurse stows his duffel bag in the trunk and offers her last advice. "Move your leg around on the flight," she says.

The American flag hangs slack on the flagpole. Garth lays his crutches across his lap. The lanky 20-year-old soldier from Minnesota rubs the place where his leg was amputated. The throbbing alternates with jolts that feel like electrical shocks. Two Percocets are in Garth's pocket if he needs them on the plane ride home.

As the cab cuts through Rock Creek Park, Garth rolls down the window to smell the forest. After weeks of hospital food and disinfectant, he breathes deeply. He rips the plastic hospital ID bracelet from his wrist and crumples it in a ball.

The bed that Garth left behind on Ward 57 will be filled by day's end. Even though major combat operations in Iraq are over, the wounded keep arriving. Twice a week, transport planes land at Andrews Air Force Base, bringing fresh casualties. Accidents, ambushes, pockets of resistance. Nearly 600 soldiers have passed through Walter Reed during Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than half of them since the conflict was officially declared over.

[Rose Siding]

1. Where the hell has this paper been on this?

Or ANY of them. I haven't seen a single first person report on the wounded since the invasion.

There was one vaguely ominous piece with quotes from the doc at the German hospital and Bush's one visit was covered but the silence has been shameful.

Six hundred. Shame.

[RamboLiberal]

3. Well this is sure one helluva report - note it's 2 parts

Really feel for these guys. What a shame the number of guys who are amputees from this. And as the article points out about all the celebs visiting - they'll soon be gone and these guys will have to live the rest of their lives with missing limbs and wounded psyche.

[Rose Siding]

7. I feel terribly for them too

I'm moved and very glad this story's being told. But my frustration with the media makes me cynical.

600 others have been through there and we heard nothing. The public should have been reading about this a month ago when this kind of coverage wasn't so "PC".

I can't help but see a play for an award. They'll get one, too because you're right- it's a hellava report.

[hlthe2b]

22. We never heard from the on the GULF 1 soldiers either...

But I know from first hand accounts that when that bunch of GIs came through who had been horrifically burned in GULF War 1, that it was devastating-- even for physicians and staff. We just never hear...

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. this should not be happening

to these troops!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are times to go to war, this was not
one of them, DAMN THEM!!!!!!!!!!!

[democrat in Tallahassee]

4. I went to see my brother at WR when he came back from Vietnam

I was only 14 and we had to pass through ward after ward after ward of wounded soldiers and then down a big long ward filled with young men who had lost arms, legs, eyes, and minds. It was an experience I will never forget; Bush should have to go and visit every last one of them and walk through those wards and look them in the eye.

[indictrichardperle]

6. i cant help but think of Perle, Bill Kristol and Ken Adelman

laughing, over-joyed with getting their war. None of them served a day in the military. They have no children in the military.

The lower class and middle class kids, wounded and maimed for the rest of their lives with little or no veteran benefits. Its fucking outrageous. Our country is made up of dumb and lazy people, we get the government we deserve.

The neo-cons in the pentagon.......when are the American people going to wake up ?

[Frances]

5. This story is definitely worth reading

It explains the price the soldiers paid by giving just the facts.

[revcarol]

10. Please rate the story a 5, then.

Took me back to Vietnam era when I saw so many wounded.

[kskiska]

8. This is so hard to read

How hollow the phrase must sound: "Thank you for your sacrifices."

Reminds me of Marlon Brando's first movie, "The Men," where he played an angry recovering ex-Gi paraplegic.

Then there's this:

One Sunday afternoon, the nurse's station on 57 gets word that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is coming for a visit. Counters are scrubbed, a hot rod magazine on the front desk gets stashed and nurses patrol the halls, making sure patients and rooms are presentable. An hour later, Rumsfeld cancels. He has a cold.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[teryang]

11. Most soldiers and sailors

...don't vote at all. IMHO. That was my experience in promoting absentee voting while on active duty. I seriously doubt that the large numbers of minorities and women in the armed forces vote repug.
I believe that most don't vote because they feel that they obey orders no matter who is in charge and that their circumstances won't change based on their vote.

I was surprised to find out after I returned from active duty that I had been voting all along even though I hadn't. Somebody had the consideration to vote for me! (sarcasm)

[FubarFly]

13. That's a repugnant attitude, my friend. n/t.

[indictrichardperle]

15. No American voted for Wolfowitz or Perle

the neo-con shit balls who pushed for this war until they got it, werent on the ballot.

[Resistance Is Futile]

16. Voting for neocons -- done with eyes open and minds shut

Plenty of Americans indirectly voted for Cheney. His signature was just as much there on the PNAC empire document as were those of the DPB/OSP backroom inhumans. The actions of the Junta have been no surprise to anyone who happened to be paying attention--it's been very clear from before day zero that a vote for Shrub was a vote for fascism.

While there may be a number of military who don't vote GOP, the members of the US armed forces which I have come in contact with have been GOP--or worse--to the bone. As I said, people who voted GOP and came back dead got what they asked for. Admittedly, the small number of troops who who voted otherwise and came back dead or wounded got a raw deal.

[FubarFly]

17. So if they believed the compassionate conservatism platform,

did they still deserve to die?

Your lack of support for our troops is alarmingly "Freeperesque."

[Rex]

19. No, not a one deserves to die.

Alot of soldiers have died just so he could say those things, and feel the way he does. Don't hold it against Resistance Is Futile, just remember how he got the right to say what he wants to.

[indictrichardperle]

18. yea sure

people who voted republican, voted for PNAC. Bullshit, not more than .00001 % of the population even knew what PNAC was at the time of the election.

Noone in the military is responsible for corrupt and evil policy made in the belt way.

The argument is a stupid one, Lieberman is a democrat,so anyone who votes democrat deserves a Lieberman foreign policy ? :eyes:

[Resistance Is Futile]

20. Ignorance is no excuse

Anyone who has been at least half awake for the past decade knows what the GOP stands for: hatred, xenophobia, imperialism, militarism and kleptocracy. PNAC is merely the latest manifestation of traditional Republican values that go back at least as far as the anti-Clinton movement. Anyone who isn't aware of this is either of mind numbingly ignorant or is engaging in an act of self-delusion. Everyone who voted GOP, uniformed or otherwise, is to some degree responsible for the government they wished to empower.

Voting GOP is like sheep voting to make a lion president. No sheep who does such a thing should surprised that what they wanted in office will turn around and eat them. Similarly, soldiers who vote GOP shouldn't be surprised when they get sent to die for someone elses' profits, blacks who vote GOP shouldn't be surprised when they get sent to the back of the bus, and the working poor shouldn't be surprised when their financial situations are eroded.

The traditional dictum of 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me' certainly applies. Repeatedly voting GOP is akin to repeatedly beating one's head with a sledge hammer. After the first few swings, the victim doesn't deserve any sympathy.


There's no reason to deride on GWIII veterans as a whole for being veterans of an imperialist conquest, there is however, a reason to deride Republican GWIII veterans for helping to 'elect' a party renound for such abuses in the first place.

[Bridget Burke]

21. Satire?

Pretending to be one of those latte-drinking, Chomsky-reading, pretentious "intellectuals" who feel contempt for those who've had an upbringing less fortunate than theirs?

You've heard that's how everybody thinks over here at DU & you're certain that you'll get many of us agreeing with you?

Close, but no cigar. You just didn't quite get it right.

[celestia671]

12. Vietnam all over again!

Gee, thanks Dubya!

[w4rma]

14. Rumsfeld's canceled visit...

One Sunday afternoon, the nurse's station on 57 gets word that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld is coming for a visit. Counters are scrubbed, a hot rod magazine on the front desk gets stashed and nurses patrol the halls, making sure patients and rooms are presentable. An hour later, Rumsfeld cancels. He has a cold.