Cost of the Iraq War

My wife brought home a copy of Rolling Stone, the one with Bush in his dunce cap. The magazine also contained a searing story on head traumas from the Iraq War. I remember early on doctors talking about the huge numbers of head traumas but it has remained somewhat a hidden story. But this week, MSNBC also has a story on the head traumas:

More injured troops are surviving the war in Iraq than any other. But because of the terrible force of IED explosions, more are surviving with brain injury than in any other war.

Jason Poole was on his third tour in Iraq when, as he puts it, he got “blasted.”

“I was unconscious for two months,” Poole says. “And then I woke up in Bethesda, in Washington, D.C.”

That was at the Naval Medical Center. For two years now Jason has been treated at the Palo Alto VA Hospital — one of four specialized centers for rehabilitation of the huge numbers of brain injured troops. The program uses intense, individualized physical and mental rehabilitation.

(snip)

Poole says he accepts that he will always have difficulty with speaking and memory.

“From the day I was born I've always been happy,” Poole says. “I know I got blasted and basically I came alive, you know, but basically it's just that I'm still happy.”

Thousands of other vets are facing the same challenge of accepting their new selves.

I wish the young man well, and the others.