Wounded veterans learn to live with new disabilities

[babylonsister]

If this is supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't.

December 24th, 2006 3:38 pm
Iraq's wounded veterans learn to live with new disabilities

By Virginie Montet / AFP

WASHINGTON - Daniel Alderman keeps telling himself it could be worse as he learns to live with his new artificial limb at the hospital in Washington that tends to maimed US soldiers from Iraq.

"It could always be worse, you could be in Arlington, you know what I mean?," he tells a visitor, referring to the national cemetery outside the US capital.

Alderman, 22, whose wife is expecting a baby girl, is one of thousands of soldiers treated at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington for serious wounds sustained in Iraq.

Last month, he lost his left leg when an improvised explosive device blew up under his vehicle as he was patrolling in the Iraqi northern city of Kirkuk just three months into his deployment in the country. He was flown to Walter Reed on November 7 and has since been learning to adjust to his new artificial leg.

"The more positive you are, the better it's going to be," says the upbeat young soldier who hails from the midwestern state of Illinois. "Everybody is very much positive here.

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[Monkeyman]

1. Dealing with Wounds are easy it dealing with the minds that is not

Lost of a limb take years to deal with. But dealing with that loss in a person mind can take forever

[rug]

2. This must be the highest percentage of amputations since the Civil War

[Cha]

3. I can't even imagine the

the truama they go through when they get a limb blown off their bodies.

Anyone who's signing on for the extended massacre needs to go over there and relieve the soldiers who don't believe in it.

[Monkeyman]

6. Stop loss

[WinkyDink]

4. As if they have a CHOICE.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. My high school chemistry teacher was a Korean War vet

who had his leg blown off. Half the time in class he would talk about-and relive- the trauma of the incident. I didn't learn much in his class about chemistry, but I did learn how a person never gets over something like this.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. One can only hope that their mental health needs will be met.

However, given this administration's disdain for vets, I doubt that they will get the services they need, even if they didn't suffer physical injuries, the mental scars will run very deep!

[Monkeyman]

8. No they are not

PTSD treatment is being played with by the VA. Under orders to make as many cost cuts as they can.

[acmejack]

9. They are cutting corners in every way they can.

I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that our district VA Hospital has closed it's Pain Management Clinic! One would think such a clinic would be a priority service for a Veteran's facility, but this has been an unmet need for over three months now and apparently they are not going to reopen it. They told me they have no plans to do so & Veterans needing those services now have to travel on their own means to another facility for treatment. The VA provided a shuttle from the local Outpatient Clinic to the District Hospital, but there is no official means to an out of district facility.