Beginning Sunday, 3 October, the WashPost is running a series of articles on brain injuries suffered by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I'm a Vietnam veteran who retired from active duty in 1995 after 28 years of service.
All the goddam mud huts in Afghanistan are not worth one more young soldier who comes home permanently unable to function. While we are investing our blood and treasure in useless wars for oil, the Chinese have built more high-speed rail than the rest of the world COMBINED.
And don't give me any of that shit about Al Qaeda, Osama Bin WhoGivesARat'sAss, and 9-11. It's just not worth the cost in young soldiers.
Details below the fold.
Here's a link to the first article in the WashPost series -- read it:
Here are some quotes:
At the Bethesda hospital, the flow of brain-injured patients is constant. For nearly a decade, the United States has been fighting wars in which soldiers are routinely exposed to brain-rattling blasts that can send ripples of compressed air hurtling through the atmosphere at 1,600 feet per second. Now, the military is struggling to come to terms with an often-invisible wound.
The military brass are discovering that what used to be shrugged off as "getting your bell rung" can lead to serious consequences. In some cases, even apparently mild brain injuries can leave a soldier disqualified for service or require lifelong care that critics say the Department of Veterans Affairs isn't equipped to handle.
Since 2000, traumatic brain injury, or TBI, has been diagnosed in about 180,000 service members, the Pentagon says. But some advocates for patients say hundreds, if not thousands, more have suffered undiagnosed brain injuries. A Rand study in 2008 estimated the total number of service members with TBI to be about 320,000.
A small percentage of those injuries are as serious as Warren's. To let his brain swell and keep the blood flowing, thereby preventing the damage from worsening, doctors removed virtually the entire left side of his skull, a procedure known as a craniectomy.
Warren's physical wounds will heal, but three weeks after he was hit, military doctors are still discovering the extent of the damage.
Williamson plows ahead with other tests, revealing that Warren doesn't know where he is. "This is the U.S.A.?" he says. Warren cannot subtract seven from 135, but he can spell "world" - though not backward. He can recite the days of the week but can't come up with the words for necktie or button.
. . .
He needs more help than one person can provide. Wallace has accepted that the burden is hers; she must care for her son for the rest of her life. But that leads to her scariest thought of all:
"What will happen to him if something happens to me?"
A few mud huts in Afghanistan are not worth 180,000 - 320,000 (and growing) young men whose brains will never again function normally. And don't give me some bullshit about Al Qaeda, Osama Bin WhoGivesARat'sAss, and 9-11.
While we are investing our blood and treasure in Afghanistan -- so we can continue to pump oil from the Middle East and Central Asia -- the Chinese have built more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined.
QINGDAO, CHINA -- Last year, China surpassed the United States as the world's largest automaker. The country is aggressively making jets to compete with Boeing and Airbus. And in recent years, with little outside notice, China made another great leap forward in transportation: It now leads the world in high-speed rail.
High-speed trains were once the preserve of Japan, with its "bullet train," and France, with its TGV. But China's trains are the world's fastest, its network of tracks the longest and its expansion plans the most ambitious. By 2012, just four years after it began its first high-speed passenger service, China will have more high-speed train tracks than the rest of the world combined.
After years of major investment in highways, China is now investing billions in a cutting-edge network of trains and subways designed to boost exports and revolutionize the flow of people and goods in the world's fastest-rising economic powerhouses.
Don't say we weren't warned that this would happen:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
And the real hell of it is that our elections are focussed ONLY on who retains power, not on what we can do to establish a national energy policy that will make wars for oil unnecessary. It makes no difference who's in charge in Washington -- not in the White House or in Congress -- because we have shown over the past three decades that all we're able to do is nibble around the edges.
Maybe we do need a Great Depression -- a really GREAT depression to shock us back to reality and to produce some real political leadership. But, at 66 years old, I won't live to see it.