Posted on 09/09/2007 12:43:59 PM PDT by james500
The war in Iraq is not over, but one legacy is already here in this city and others across America: an epidemic of brain-damaged soldiers.
Thousands of troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, or TBI. These blast-caused head injuries are so different from the ones doctors are used to seeing from falls and car crashes that treating them is as much faith as it is science.
"I've been in the field for 20-plus years dealing with TBI. I have a very experienced staff. And they're saying to me, 'We're seeing things we've never seen before,'" said Sandy Schneider, director of Vanderbilt University's brain injury rehabilitation program.
Doctors also are realizing that symptoms overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that both must be treated. Odd as it may seem, brain injury can protect against PTSD by blurring awareness of what happened.
But as memory improves, emotional problems can emerge: One of the first "graduates" of Vanderbilt's program committed suicide three weeks later.
"Of all the ones here, he would not have been the one we would have thought," Schneider said. "They called him the Michelangelo of Fort Campbell" -- a guy who planned to go to art school.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Exactly. And I would wager that after years of posting here, some might actually ‘get it’, that we are certainly not against our troops in any way shape or form. Why anyone would come to that conclusion just baffles me.
After posting here for ten years, I would ask anyone to find one single post where I have taken an anti-troop stance period. Therefore, why would anyone jump to the illogical conclusion that this was the first instance?
Honestly, I guess I give some folks too much credit.
I agree, “brain damage” is insulting due to its connotations. I would prefer the term “brain injuries” as it is more accurate and descriptive.
These guys will have a tough time - brain injuries are not externally visible and can lead to severe changes in personality and behaviour, which people often don’t have much compassion for due to its hidden nature. And the changes in personality and behaviour can be difficult for friends and loved ones to deal with, as often the sufferer can seem like a completely different person.
Don’t let it get to you.
IMHO, your heart’s in the right place.
Thanks. You don’t use some of the terminology and catch phrases used in this article, if you’re sole goal is to post an informative article on the plight of our troops. At least that’s the way I see it.
Take care.
Your position seems to be “news story about injured troops bad. MUST be designed to hurt Bush. Dismiss as propoganda.” This is trashy and inapporpriate for several reasons the least of which is that you’re preventing the public from understanding what the injured troops are dealing with and facing once they’re back stateside. In short, you seem to express support for the troops only when its politically convienent.
As for your “questions”
1. Yes
2. Irrelevent
3. Only silly DOD press releases that orgasim over the latest tree planted or school built (ignoring how 5 months later its fallen apart due to disrepair on the Iraqis part or destroyed by a $100 RPG)which IMHO and as I’ve stated several times are just as harmful to our war effort as media bias.
4. Neither. Both have agendas.
5. You’re claiming they’re anti-American which is the same thing
6. You’d prefer to see the story swept under the rug with the inevitable consequences that they would NOT receive the attention and care they’ve earned. The disgrace at Walter Reed bears out that lighting a fire thanks to the press helps the troops.
7. See #6
8. Irrelevent - those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the best care. Period.
9. Again, irrelevent for our discussion
10. Put’s a name to the statistics. Nothing sinister about that.
11. Not at all. I was unaware as to the severity of brain injuries that our troops are facing once back in the US. But then again, I’m not a bot partisan.
I note that everything that reveals the article for the propaganda it was, is irrelevent to you. So much for honest discussion on the matter. This tells me all I cared to know.
ROTFLMAO! What a response. Sorry to have pointed out your conditional support of our troops. Have a nice day.
God bless our men and women. This American loves them. Please tell them thank you!!!
They are trying to medicalize and propagandize (and probably also sue over) non-existent maladies that amount to GIs occasionally spacing out as they recall nasty episodes, and civilian life seems dreamy to fake.
There is nothing wrong with said men, but there is definitely something wrong with the quacks writing this article - and anyone whose BS meter doesn't peg to 10 when they read it.
I dismissed this article because:
1. it refered to our men as brain-damaged, an extremely unprofession term
2. it said there was an epidemic, something that was not documented in the article
3. it inferred this problem is something new, 'shell shock' has been around for the last 90 years
4. it attemped to cash in on 'feelings' by utilization of a comparison of one injured troop to Michelangelo, is this a tactic of a blanced report, or dare I say it, a leftist ploy of propaganda
I think this article is just one more ploy to get us out of Iraq by any means possible. Therefore I think it is a transparent insult to our troops, by an organization (A.P.) that has done nothing to advance the well being or reputations of our troops since they first entered Irag. This is the same organization that called panties on the heads of terrorists, abuse. This is the same organization that reports of attrocities regularly, reportedly at the hands of our troops. Still, you think this organization in this instance is trying to help our troops, and my record indicates to you that I don't care about the troops.
You read my comments and somehow figured that I didn't respect the troops or care if they got proper treatment. I'm not sure how you think this article was going to make sure they were going to get proper treatment, but evidently you did. And by extension, my comments on the thread would prevent them from getting that treatment? Whew!
Let's look at your responses to my questions.
1. Before this report, had you ever heard of the A.P.?
1. Yes
Okay good
2. Before this report, have you ever seen the A.P. print a news flash that was favorable to our troops?
2. Irrelevent
Don't you think it might be relevant that the A.P. has seldom if ever posted anything favorable to our troops? Wouldn't a no answer here have been cause for at least some concern about what the true goal of this article might be? What if this were merely one more propagandist article focused to kill support for the war? Would you still think this article was supportive of injured troops and our troops still in the field, or would you see it as exploitive for reasons of sedition?
3. Just how many reports of good things our troops are doing in Iraq, have you seen?
3. Only silly DOD press releases that orgasim over the latest tree planted or school built (ignoring how 5 months later its fallen apart due to disrepair on the Iraqis part or destroyed by a $100 RPG)which IMHO and as I’ve stated several times are just as harmful to our war effort as media bias.
Why would you think a tree planting or school opening could only be propaganda? Are you infering that there is no real tangible value to providing an educational resource for Iraqi children? So what if five months later one of the schools is destroyed? Do we simply quit trying to help the Iraqis and their children? Many other schools weren't destroyed. Isn't that a good thing? You seem to equate the DOD on the same par as dedicated marxist supporting propagandist organizations. Is that what you meant to do? Here you've also stated that those who destroy (infrastructure) in Iraq (terrorists) are just as harmful to our war effort as media bias. Anotherwords, you think media bias and terrorism are just about equally destructive to our war efforts. Despite this, you have done everything you can to twist my objection to what I think is a cleverly worked piece of leftist propaganda designed to kill the moral of those supporting the war from our homeland.
4. Which news source do you think is more reliable, A.P. or the DOD, since you brought the DOD up?
4. Neither. Both have agendas.
Once again, you are saying that the DOD cannot be trusted any more than an acknowledged marxist organization that shares an agenda with Osame Bin Laden, namely to get our troops out of Iraq.
5. Where did you see me say the A.P. had done anything treasonable?
5. You’re claiming they’re anti-American which is the same thing
I claimed that they were a propagandist organization. I did not use the term treason. I do think it rises to the level of sedition, but I haven't used that term prior to this post either.
6. Where did you see me say these troups shouldn't get care?
6. You’d prefer to see the story swept under the rug with the inevitable consequences that they would NOT receive the attention and care they’ve earned. The disgrace at Walter Reed bears out that lighting a fire thanks to the press helps the troops.
Please point out to me where the above article made the charge that our troops are not getting medical care. I don't believe that charge was made, so the premise that this article is going to help the troops at all, is rediculous.
7. Where did I say I thought any information should be bottled up?
7. See #6
A resoned report about troops and 'shell shock' would have been welcomed, but that's not what this is. This is an article that refered to our wounded as being 'brain-damaged' a very charged, inaccurate and unprofessional term. It also stated that there is an epidemic of these types of injuries. Once again, this is a very charged and inaccurate term. Epidemics are related to infectious diseases, not instances of injury. I do see it used improperly quite often, but that doesn't excuse it's use here. The inference is that there are more of these types of injuries than seen in any other wars. Except for one opinion that was mentioned, no studies were provided to verify that claim. Despite your overlooking the use of the reference to one of history's most beloved artists, I do find propagandist value in that tactic. What it infers is that we are sending off our "Michaelangelos" to war, destroying a whole genertion of talent. That is demeaning to our President and a transparent attempt to use the injuries to our troops as a wedge issue to get us out of Iraq.
8. Do you think the current injuries to our troops are worse than the injuries in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam or the Gulf War?
8. Irrelevent - those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan deserve the best care. Period.
Well I happen to think it's quite relevant if A.P. is mischaracterizing the injuries to our men in the current war, so as to use the issue as a wedge to get us to adopt Osama Bin Laden's number one goal. As for our troops getting the best care, that's a straw issue you've raised continually. Nobody but nobody has expressed the opinion here that our troops shouldn't get the best possible care. Period.
9. Do you agree that was one of the points in the article?
9. Again, irrelevent for our discussion
Well you don't have to agree. Folks can read the article and gleen from it that the claim was made that brain injuries were worse in this war than any other. I can see why you wouldn't particularly care that this case was made, but then it does impact our discussion whether you wish to acknowledge it or not.
10. What particular value did the reference to Michelangelo add to the facts in this article?
10. Put’s a name to the statistics. Nothing sinister about that.
Would it matter if no statistics were provided? How can you put a name on something that didn't exist? And why go for the Michelangelo tie-in, unless you wanted folks to think we were killing off this generation's Michelangelos and other millinial greats. It's propaganda, pure and simple.
11. Do you or do you not think this may have been just a wee bit over the top, and a clear propaganda piece?
11. Not at all. I was unaware as to the severity of brain injuries that our troops are facing once back in the US. But then again, I’m not a bot partisan.
One doesn't have to be a bot partisan to check an article out and come to the conclusion that it's main goal was not to relate informaiton about our troops. The main goal of this article was to kill off the moral of U.S. Citizens who support this war, and reinforce the opinions of those who dispise it.
I do have two, possibly three more questions for you though.
Do you think we should have removed Saddam Hussein and moved 170,000 troops to Iraq in order to bring it under control?
Do you think we should pull our troops out now in as little time as possible? If not, how long should we give it?
You are wrong.
There are hundreds of applications for spaces in TBI units. And many being treated in TBI units. They have many here at Shepherd. They come from soldiers who have been in Iraq. TBI is real and tragic for many. It can cause a complete change in personality, a tendancy toward violent and unpredictable behavior and other major problems.
In previous wars, many TBI soldiers died. We have advance field medicine capabilities that can now save these soldiers. It will require an large increase in specialized TBI therapies. With appropriate therapy, many of these soldiers can enjoy an independent and successful future. Military medicine is advanced and successful. The medics in Iraq save many lives using state of the art technology. This is a good thing, and represents the best that the US has to offer. Stateside medicine hasn’t kept pace and our soldiers are suffering. IMO conservatives should be insisting that our soldiers receive the best care available, including TBI therapies. Liberals are the ones that cover their ears so they don’t have to deal with reality. You sound more like one of them when you say this isn’t really a problem.
How is this different than shell shock, something that has been recognized at least back to WWI?
BTW, I don’t think anyone here is saying our troops should not get treatment for this.
Have you seen someone say that?
Your excuses for dismissing this article are just that - excuses. Brain damaged as an “unprofessional term?” What? Are you by any chance a neuro surgeon? I thought not. An epidemic is defined by Websters as “affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time.” Seems the article makes the case pretty clearly on that score. The condition IS new precisely because battlefield medicine has advanced to the point where those who would have been killed by these afteraffects are now surviving. For you, average Joe Schmo, to call Dr. Schneider (who actually helps and cares for our troops) a liar in that respect is hilarious. As for it being a “leftist ploy of propoganda,” I’d advise you to leave the house more often. I see the news piece as a testament to the sufferings of those who have served in Iraq. Sorry its not like the warm and fuzzy DoD pieces you cherish but reality rarely is.
“Wouldn’t a no answer here have been cause for at least some concern about what the true goal of this article might be?”
Nice dodge but what exactly is FALSE in the article mentioned? Or are you only concerned that it doesn’t posses a spin you approve of?
“Why would you think a tree planting or school opening could only be propaganda? Are you infering that there is no real tangible value to providing an educational resource for Iraqi children?”
Because thats no way to quantify that we’re making headway over in Iraq. Its simply a silly numbers game that tells the average voter nothing about whats going on over there.
And when a news report comes out a few months later, which the DoD curiously doesn’t see fit to mention, about how the majority of those “civic projects” are a disaster, filled with corruption etc etc a person hearing that becomes even more disheartened and less supportive of our operations. The pieces of evidence that we’ll be succeeding in Iraq are intangible and its idiotic for the DoD to operate otherwise.
“Please point out to me where the above article made the charge that our troops are not getting medical care. I don’t believe that charge was made, so the premise that this article is going to help the troops at all, is rediculous.”
If it weren’t for stories such as this I’m pretty sure its safe to say the quality of care these troops would be getting would decline signifigantly. Walter Reed exposed some pretty ugly truths.
“What it infers is that we are sending off our “Michaelangelos” to war, destroying a whole genertion of talent. That is demeaning to our President and a transparent attempt to use the injuries to our troops as a wedge issue to get us out of Iraq.”
That’s what you, a Bush partisan, are infering. Not I. I read this article as mainly about the medical conditions that some unfortunate soldiers are going through. But thanks for proving my point that your main problem with the article is its possible negative affects on Bush’s polls numbers.
“Nobody but nobody has expressed the opinion here that our troops shouldn’t get the best possible care.”
Once more, if these types of news stories, such as the one about how the wounded were inundated with buercratic bs at Walter Reed, were to be hushed up as you wish, the consequence would be a lowered level of care. Put the conditions of the injured front and center, you can bet they won’t be forgotten.
“How can you put a name on something that didn’t exist?”
Several posters on this very thread have made it clear that it does exist. And the doctor referred to the patient as “Michaelangelo” not due to some nefarious scheme but due to patient’s interest in art. Your partisan lens skewed that translation.
“The main goal of this article was to kill off the moral of U.S. Citizens who support this war, and reinforce the opinions of those who dispise it.”
Which seems to be the only thing you really give a damn about. Not the troops, their families or what they’ve endured. Only Bush’s support levels. Disgraceful.
“Do you think we should have removed Saddam Hussein and moved 170,000 troops to Iraq in order to bring it under control?”
Yes to Saddam being removed from power. No to nation building idiocy.
“Do you think we should pull our troops out now in as little time as possible? If not, how long should we give it?”
Again, nation building in that hellhole is just plain naieve and dumb. They’re modern day barbarians. Simply kill anyone who threatens us or our allies and be on our way.
To return to the main issue, my point stands - your concern for the troops ends when discomforting news (which might have political consequences) begins. The troops only role in your eyes seems to be smile while being awarded their purple hearts then shut up and disappear in some dank VA hospital.
I think Bush's Iraq War can be best compared with Truman's Korean War. In each case we liberated a country which then experienced unrest and civil war. In each case we liberated a country which needed a stretch of time to develop an army and a new government.
Truman made a deadly error when he eliminated our presence in Korea. At least Bush isn't giving up the high ground in a young country we had freed 4 years earlier.
For some reason, folks discussing Iraq (like the WWII veterans you mention) have conveniently "forgotten" about the Korean war, which would not have occurred in the first place if Truman hadn't made the disastrous judgment to withdraw troops from S. Korea in 1949.
The troops sent back to Korea were undermanned, undersupplied and underprepared. The major S. Korean airbase had been taken over by the N. Koreans and, initially, US planes had to keep flying back to Japan to land and to refuel. Bad weather interferred with "redeployment" from Japan. The first troops sent over from Japan were closest to Korea, but least battle-ready.
At least Truman had the guts to nuke japan
Unfortunately, Truman and his advisors decided after WWII that A-bombs were the "wave of the future" and drastically cut back the military budget. Result: our troops had outdated equipment when they went into Korea to re-free S. Korea. Many deaths resulted from the lack of working, up-to-date equipment. Truman and his advisors should not have blissfully assumed the US would remain the only country with an atomic bomb.
Truman threatened to use the A-bomb when things went sour in Korea in late 1950. But "Give 'em hell" Harry Truman didn't use the A-bomb.
To a Democrat, the ideal boxing match between a Republican and a Democrat would be one in which 1) the referee making the decisions is a Democrat and 2) Democrats in the audience are allowed to grab the Republican's ankles.
That way they can disable their opponent and criticize his performance.
TBI is an actual Brain injury. It is caused by trauma to the brain, such as a fall, or an impact of some kind. The actual injury may heal, but the brain reacts differently to certain kinds of injury. Like after a stroke, there can often be permanent damage. It is the lasting effects that are difficult to determine, not the TBI.
I knew a young girl who suffered a TBI in a snowmobile accident, she is ok, but she is unable to blink and keep her eyes hydrated, and now writes with her left hand instead of her right.
The difference between shell shock, PTSD and TBI is mostly the cause of the injury. TBI is a trauma to the brain. There must be a head injury of some kind. Soldiers get TBI from humvee accidents, explosions, gunshots, etc. There is always a major injury, which will require major medical treatment. TBI can be fatal, without extensive medical intervention. In previous wars, many of these soldiers just died. Now we have the ability to save them, which is why there are so many more than in the past.
PTSD and shell shock are caused by psychological trauma rather than physical trauma. It can be difficult to tie the symptoms to a specific event, and the symptoms can appear much later.
People may not be suggesting that the troops not get treatment, but there are many that suggest there aren’t many with this injury, or it is somehow exaggerated. That is disprespectful to our soldiers. TBI is often devastating to the victims and their families. They need intensive therapy and medical care. Some must relearn how to read and to walk, some suffer permanent impairments. It can take months or years to fully recover. However, in previous wars they probably wouldn’t have survived, so it is really a blessing.
I hope this hasn’t confused you further. My intent is only to provide some information on the injury. It should be taken very seriously.
4. Which news source do you think is more reliable, A.P. or the DOD, since you brought the DOD up?4. Neither. Both have agendas.
With all due respect, I join myself to the opinions of DoughtyOne in this matter.Granted that the medical services of the military have been saving the lives of grieviously wounded people who would in any prior conflict almost certainly have died - and who thus are faced with extreme recoveries, if indeed they do recover. And that that is the difference between saying that three thousand American troops were killed, and perhaps twice that number - or more. Which means that the fate of those thousands of "fatally wounded" - but miraculously surviving - troops is a legitimate political issue. Full stop.
But IMHO there can be no reasoned political discourse in America which does not take into consideration that
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinThat is, a story can be perfectly true, and still be studiedly deceptive. I can take this article pretty much as written, on the one hand - and on the other hand I can keep my profound suspicion of the motives of the AP on the other. Both are aspects of reality.You will be tempted to see my references to the Associated Press as an illegitimate conspiracy theory, but this is not the stuff of tinfoil hats but of the open public record. I have analyzed the issue of "bias in the media over a long period of time, and from a philosophical perspective. And what shakes out is that the transition between the frankly partisan papers of the founding era - Hamilton and Jefferson waged their partisan battles in newspapers they sponsored - and the more extremely partisan journalism of today is temporally and logically correlated with the founding of the Associated Press - originally, the New York Associated Press.
In the founding era, national and international news traveled by sailing ship, pony express, and itinerant peddler. The newspapers were local affairs, not systematically tied together, and other people got national/international news as fast, generally, from other sources as they did from the local printer. Newspapers were not dailies, more like weeklies - but not even necessarily on a fixed schedule. The telegraph changed that - the telegraph and the (1848) founding of the Associated Press. The AP is what homogenized American journalism.
Suddenly news was a commodity which could be sold nationwide, and the local presses were no longer unambiguously independent. Now there was a (single) overarching organization which propagated news nationally, and although local editors massaged the stories, and selected which ones to print and with what emphasis, in a very real sense the local banner declaring Philadelphia Inquirer or Milwaukee Sentinel or whatever was simply a curtain behind which stood: the AP.
The AP is the distilled interest of journalism. Which is to attract attention with ephemeral stories today, and to do the same thing with other ephemeral stories tomorrow. And to have those stories first. And the ultimate interest of journalism is to make the newspaper (or broadcast) journalist seem important. And that is an incentive to promote journalists above (other) corporations, and above the police and the military. And the easy way to do that is to criticize and second guess the corporations and the military and the police. IOW, what "objective journalism" calls "progressive" or "liberal" is simply the political implications of the self-interest of journalism.
But the original topic was,
4. Which news source do you think is more reliable, A.P. or the DOD, since you brought the DOD up?4. Neither. Both have agendas.To which the short reply is that while of course it is true that the DOD has an agenda, that is essentially irrelevant in the context of the countervailing propaganda power arrayed against the DOD. The propaganda power of the DOD is a de minimus in comparison to the AP, and consequently the DOD has to be as honest as possible to be able to withstand the second guessing of the AP.
The army is serious about trying to determine if their soldiers have issues. More training for leaders to recognize the signs of mTBI or PTSD.
Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Training Requirement
ALARACT 153-2007 DTG 171457Z JUL 07 directs all Soldiers (AD, USAR, and ARNG) to participate in training on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by 18 OCT 2007. This chain teaching program will inform leaders and Soldiers of the causes and physical and psychological effects of mTBI/PTSD and provide information on how to seek subsequent treatment of those conditions. In order to remain Army Strong, every leader and Soldier must be capable of identifying symptoms and ensuring that treatment is available to every Soldier who requires or requests it. Facilitators can access the download instructions and Facilitators Guide accessed HERE.
KantianBurke
IMO YO that we shouldn’t be in Iraq speaks volumes. No wonder you don’t mind the MSM using our toops to kill morale on a daily basis.
There were injuries like these in other wars. There were wards full of men who had suffered shell shock. You didn’t know this?
I’ve spent enough time explaining why I won’t buy into A.P. acting as if it cared one whit for our troops.
Thanks for your response. I’ve spent enough time on this topic, so I’ll let your comments end this.
I do care about our troops, I do realize they have real valid injuries. I am sorry that they do. I will not appologize for thinking A.P. is a marxist organization that has sought to destroy our efforts in Iraq, and continues to do so.
ga medic
I appreciate your additional comments. To suggest that I am confused and could be confused further is an opinion you are welcome to.
Take care.
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