NY Times new Sunday article: Healing With New Limbs and Fragile Dreams

[Faygo Kid]

This is a long read, but worth a visit, from tomorrow's New York Times. While these people sacrifice their lives and futures, there is no sacrifice from that top 1% that Bush is president for, or from the chickenhawk radio talk show hosts and Faux News talking heads. This article is why I post at Democratic Underground.

February 12, 2006
The Wounded
Healing, With New Limbs and Fragile Dreams
By JULIET MACUR
It was a victory for Lance Cpl. Matthew Schilling to walk into the upper gallery of the House of Representatives on Jan. 31 for the State of the Union address. He wore his dress blues and a prosthetic leg. Five months earlier, he had been carried on a stretcher, wounded and bleeding, into a hospital in Iraq after a roadside bomb exploded 10 feet from him.

The blast tore through his right foot and calf and blew a hole through his left hand. But hearing President Bush speak confidently of victory in Iraq, Corporal Schilling, a smooth-faced Marine reservist and college student from Portersville, Pa., who grew up on a cattle farm, felt again that his sacrifice had been worth it.

"I felt really proud when all those people I met that night thanked me for my service," said Corporal Schilling, 21, who attended with his wife, Leigh Ann, as guests of their congresswoman, Representative Melissa A. Hart, a Republican.

Yet when the Schillings returned to the Mologne House, a hotel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for wounded soldiers and their families, Corporal Schilling found that wearing his prosthesis that night had taken a toll. Blood blisters had formed on his stump, and he was soon back in a wheelchair facing more surgery.

The next day, a member of Corporal Schilling's Marine Corps unit and a victim of the same blast, Lance Cpl. Mark Beyers, wheeled up to him at the Walter Reed physical therapy clinic. Corporal Beyers's right arm and leg were amputated in Iraq. "We should go into surgery together," Corporal Beyers joked. "They can give us a two-for-one discount."

(Continues at. . . )
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/national/12WOUNDED.html?hp&ex=1139720400&en=9433185ff34d55ac&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[w8liftinglady]

1. Thank you for posting this

People need to know that the 16,000 wounded are only combat related injuries-they don't count the kids who get hurt in non-combat accidents(like car accidents)

[Faygo Kid]

2. I agree. And thank you. What is the art on your post?

I like it. I do wish that the media would cover this aspect of Iraq. So many lives ruined. None in Bush's class, of course. No pics of wounds, no pics of coffins or funerals. The Sterile War. Maybe I will start calling it that.

[w8liftinglady]

3. from a site-hopeforhealing.org

for survivors of trauma and sexual abuse -this was a healing drawing done by one of the people there.I like it,too
http://www.hopeforhealing.org/

[Faygo Kid]

4. Bookmarked. Hope you liked mine, too.

"Duel After the Masquerade," in Baltimore. I am very much more of an abstract guy, but I found this visceral.

[w8liftinglady]

5. wow-that's beautiful!

you are extremely talented :pals:

[SoCalDem]

6. Ward 57.. (a must read..click the video links too)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16510-2003Jul19.html