In the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet.In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
In the old wars clutches of short swords and jabs into faceswith spears.
In the new wars long range guns and smashed walls, guns running a spit of metal and men falling in tens andtwenties.In the wars to come new silent deaths, new silent hurlers not
yet dreamed out in the heads of men.
In the old wars kings quarreling and thousands of menfollowing.In the new wars kings quarreling and millions of menfollowing.In the wars to come Kings kicked under the dust and millionsOf men following great causes not yet dreamed out in theheads of men.
WARS, Carl Sandburg
So many times I’ve seen hand-to-hand combat.
Once for real, and a thousand times in dreams.
Whoever says that war is not horrible,Knows nothing about war.
SO MANY TIMES I’VE SEEN . . . , Yuliya Drunia
Military members who lost their limbs overseas participate in a run in California.
Rebuilding Soldiers Transformed By War InjuriesOctober 13, 2011Listen to the Story
Rebuilding Soldiers Transformed By War Injuries
October 13, 2011
October 13, 2011
Improvements in medical care and equipment mean fewer troops are dying on the battlefield. But more troops are returning home severely wounded, with injuries that require lifelong care and cost millions of dollars in medical bills.
On Thursday's Fresh Air, veteran combat reporter David Wood talks about some of the challenges that severely wounded soldiers face when they return from Afghanistan and Iraq. Wood is the author of a new 10-part series for The Huffington Post called "Beyond the Battlefield" that examines some of those challenges and setbacks.
David Wood is the senior military correspondent for The Huffington Post. He was previously a staff correspondent for Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The Baltimore Sun.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTSOn IEDs
"IEDs are designed to create mayhem on the human body. For dismounted troops especially, stepping on or near an IED when it explodes beneath you, it tends to traumatically amputate one or both limbs, very often it severs the genitals and on up through the body, slashing through flesh and bone, ripping off cartilage — and on top of that, there's a fireball that burns away the damaged flesh that's left. ... Trying to clean out the wounds, trying to prevent infections, is often the first order of business, and a lot of the wounded who arrive at Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] in suburban Maryland or the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, spend many, many days having their wounds gently cleaned and cleaned and cleaned over and over again."
"IEDs are designed to create mayhem on the human body. For dismounted troops especially, stepping on or near an IED when it explodes beneath you, it tends to traumatically amputate one or both limbs, very often it severs the genitals and on up through the body, slashing through flesh and bone, ripping off cartilage — and on top of that, there's a fireball that burns away the damaged flesh that's left. ... Trying to clean out the wounds, trying to prevent infections, is often the first order of business, and a lot of the wounded who arrive at Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] in suburban Maryland or the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, spend many, many days having their wounds gently cleaned and cleaned and cleaned over and over again."On troops losing their genitals after stepping on IEDs
"The Army sent a team of doctors to Afghanistan earlier this year to talk to soldiers about IEDs [and the] kinds of injuries [that result]. One of the things they reported back is that soldiers and Marines are signing do-not-resuscitate pacts — in the event that they lose their genitals, they don't want to live. ... It does reflect a deep fear among many troops that they, in essence, lose their manhood."
On getting vets the care they need
"The [Department of Veterans Affairs] is an amazing place. They do a lot of great stuff and almost everyone I've met there has been smart and creative and dedicated, and I have a lot of admiration for the people who work there. At the same time, it's a gigantic bureaucracy and it's hard to transform that bureaucracy to take care of the unique problems that we're seeing among the wounded coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. There's been a gigantic demand for mental health services, which the VA has scrambled to keep up on, not always successfully. A lot of veterans have difficulty getting services. The wait times are sometimes very, very long. Things got so bad that a federal appeals court in California ruled that the VA was denying veterans their constitutional rights by not providing good services on time."
On being a Quaker and a conscientious objector who has been embedded with troops on and off for the past 35 years
"I got interested in telling the stories of people who were caught up in conflict. People who were fighters, people who were refugees, people who were victims — the vast number of people who work constantly to resolve conflict and to get sides talking. I never felt that by reporting the stories of people in conflict that I was endorsing conflict in any way. ... Being a conscientious objector is a very personal thing. The way I thought about it: Do you want to spend the next several years killing people, or do you want to spend it doing something more productive? And that's really the way I came at that."
"I'm terrified when I'm out on a battlefield. Telling these stories, I think it's important that people understand what it's like out there, what people go through, who are the people who are doing this in Afghanistan on our behalf. Most of us have sat this war out. I want them to know what it's like and who is in the middle of it and what the consequences are. Beyond that, I don't really have an agenda. I think that's really important, especially in a democracy. We need to know who is doing it and what it's like for them."http://www.npr.org/2011/10/13/141266015/rebuilding-wounded-soldiers-when-they-return
WORLD WAR I NECROMANCY
http://forum.chatdd.com/information-center/22435-horrors-world-war-1-not-weakhearted.html
The biggest and worst injury producer in World War 1 was shrapnel (metal fragments) from shelling. This was followed by bullets, grenades and then bayonets & other hand to hand injuries, in that order.
In the early battles of the Western Front, battle casualties were due primarily to artillery-fire (60%), followed by that from firearms (35%) and smaller arms such as hand-grenades, bayonets etc. - (5%).
Nine months into the War there began what was to become an avalanche of toxic gas poisoning cases; firstly with chlorine, later mustard gas. A total of 185,000 cases were recorded with 7,000 fatalities. Almost all the cases were on the Western Front. Overall, gas cases represented about 10% of British casualties although, of course, the fatality rate was much lower than this (0.4%). Whilst many minor toxic gas cases were returned to duty, most of the really seriously affected were permanently debilitated and many suffered an early death some years after the War had ended.
The shells of World War 1 tended to burst in huge discrete chunks, which did appalling damage to the human body when they struck one, such as tearing off of limbs. There were several types of shells, and shrapnel shells caused the most wounds. These shrapnel shells were designed to burst in the air and deliver many round balls in all directions with the purpose of wounding men. They were not effective at blowing holes in things and men inside a dugout were effectively protected from shrapnel shells.
High explosive shells were very effective at destroying dugouts and other earthworks and these created massive concussion waves that could kill a man up to 30m (30 yards) away. Often, the men killed by concussion had no visible sign of injury and troops were often shocked to find groups of men killed seemingly without cause.
After shrapnel wounds, the biggest killer was undoubtedly the machinegun which was called at the time, 'the most murderous weapon ever invented.' Exact numbers of men killed by machinegun are not known because the machine gun fires what is basically a rifle bullet, except it fires large numbers of them rapidly. Since 35% of wounds came from small arms, I would guess that 20-25% of these were from machinegun and the remainder from rifle fire.
Grenades caused a significant number of wounds (about 3%) as they were frequently thrown into dugouts where they could explode amongst a crowd of men in a confined space.
Finally, wounds were also caused by bayonet and other hand to hand combat which included knives, brass knuckles, maces, clubs, rifle butts, fists, boots, and shovels. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_caused_injuries_in_World_War_1 Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_caused_injuries_in_World_War_1#ixzz1ahpYv98W
Artists' Masks Hid Wounds of World War I Soldiers
February 24, 2007
Listen
States Consider Drug Test Requirement For Benefits
October 11, 2011
Listen to the Story
Artists' Masks Hid Wounds of World War I Soldiers
This photograph taken around 1920 documents sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd's creation of cosmetic masks to be worn by soldiers disfigured during World War I.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7556326
October 11, 2011
Dozens of states are considering laws that would require drug testing for government benefit recipients. Those in favor say it would help ensure that tax dollars are used properly, but opponents say it would perpetuate stereotypes about the poor and withhold help from those who need it.
Guests
Michael Bender, state capitol reporter, St. Petersburg Times
Rep. Lonnie Napier, Kentucky Legislature
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, adjunct professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and former head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
CONAN: David, I wanted to get General McCaffrey to respond as well. And the - like David, our caller, the person bringing the complaint in Florida is a Navy veteran, a military veteran, saying he needs temporary assistance, and this is an unconstitutional bar to that. A lot of the people who are applying for this are people just out of the military.
MCCAFFREY: Well, yeah, exactly. Look, we had 2.5 million of our troops serve in combat. When they come home, many of them deal with alcohol in particular. Probably some 7 percent of them have a chronic alcohol problem for at least some period of time when they return. I think the other thing you can take into account, you look at a program like this - to stigmatize the nature of the population, I underscore most of us don't use drugs; most of it don't abuse alcohol. But the poly-drug abusers who do are not concentrated among the welfare recipients.
And oh, by the way, if you are a chronic alcohol and heroin addict, we're going to pick up on you through a variety of means. You're going to get arrested. You're going to show up in the emergency room. You're going to be applying for welfare assistance. There's a lot of ways in which we'll detect this. And that population - the prime objective of social policy is getting them into rehabilitation and use coercion when you do it, and try and save their lives. So I'm for drug - effective, science-based drug and alcohol treatment to include with a welfare system. You just don't want to be blanket-testing large populations.
And by the way, it is a burden to be drug-tested. A lot - particularly, a lot of women I've seen are humiliated by the process, and there's sort of a presumption that you must be a suspect lot. I didn't feel that way as a soldier. I wouldn't if I was a truck driver on the highway, but I darn sure might feel that way if I was applying for welfare because I was out of work.
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