Wounded troops overwhelm care

Six years into the "global war on terror," the Bush administration, Congress, and federal agencies are scrambling to address the health needs of battlefield veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush acknowledges that the current means of caring for wounded and traumatized vets is "an antiquated system that needs to be changed." A bipartisan commission says the need for fundamental improvements in care management and the disability system "requires a sense of urgency and strong leadership."

As a result, Mr. Bush has proposed administrative action and legislation that would streamline the system for providing postwar medical services and disability compensation to wounded veterans and their families.

The numbers are daunting:

•Of the more than 1.4 million service men and women who have served in the two war zones, nearly 700,000 have become eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care, of whom about 230,000 have sought such care since 2002.

• Depending on future force deployments, VA medical costs associated with Iraq and Afghanistan could total between $7 billion and $9 billion over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections. Disability compensation and survivors' benefits could add another $3 billion to $4 billion.

• A total of about 30,000 troops have been wounded in action. The survival rate of those wounded is higher than it was in Vietnam and much higher than World War II, due to body armor, advances in battlefield medical procedures, and more rapid evacuation.

Put another way, this means the number of those killed is a relatively smaller portion of overall casualties. It also means concern is growing about injuries and ailments that have come to mark this war: amputations, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and the mental and emotional shock of combat.

"Of the [Iraq/Afghanistan] veterans who sought care from VA, about 38 percent have received at least a preliminary diagnosis of a mental health condition, and 18 percent have received a preliminary diagnosis for PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], making it the most common, but by no means, the only mental health condition related to the stress of deployment," Michael Kussman, undersecretary of the Veterans Health Administration, told a House Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing last week.

According to the Congressional Research Service, between 2003 and 2007 about 60,000 troops were diagnosed with either PTSD or TBI.

The VA is one of the largest federal bureaucracies, operating more than 1,500 facilities providing help for veterans and their families and employing about 200,000 people, including some 13,000 doctors and nearly 55,000 nurses.

Despite this, one concern is the growing need for medical specialists to help war veterans.

In recent congressional testimony, Joseph Wilson of the American Legion cited federal studies showing that by 2020, projected retirements will create a shortage of about 24,000 physicians and almost 1 million nurses nationwide.

"Another challenge [is] acquiring staff trained in certain specialty fields … physical medicine and rehabilitation, blind rehabilitation, speech and language pathology, physical therapy, and certified rehabilitation nursing," warned Mr. Wilson. "Given the special rehabilitative and long-term care needs of combat wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan – especially those residing in rural areas – shortages in these specialty fields will have a lasting impact on these veterans as they attempt to resume independent functioning."

Linda Bilmes, who teaches at of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, estimates that the long-term costs of disability compensation and medical care to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan could be as high as $700 billion.

"The cost of providing such care and paying disability compensation is a significant long-term entitlement cost that the US will be paying for the next forty years," professor Bilmes wrote in a research paper earlier this year. Reports early this year of inferior treatment and bureaucratic bungling at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted problems that still have not been fully solved despite steps to reform the massive and complicated system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week cited "fundamental system weaknesses" on the part of both the Defense Department (DOD) and the VA in how they treat wounded vets – including not enough staff and staff training.

"Delayed decisions, confusing policies, and the perception that DOD and VA disability ratings result in inequitable outcomes have eroded the credibility of the system," the GAO reported.

It is these criticisms that Bush addressed last week in meeting with the "Wounded Warriors" commission headed by former Sen. Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. The President's proposals include:

•New procedures for evaluating disabilities and compensating injured military personnel, including pensions for those who cannot return to active duty.

•Greater emphasis on diagnosing and treating PTSD – especially addressing any stigma associated with the disorder.

•Assignment of patient advocates to monitor progress, guide wounded vets through government bureaucracies, and help in the transition to civilian life.

•Providing six months unpaid leave for family members who want to help aid the recovery of wounded GIs.

As the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, policy makers – like most Americans – say it's vital to separate a divisive war from those who fought.

"No matter where we stand on the war in Iraq, we all stand together in our desire to make sure that our returning service members get the healthcare they need, and the benefits they have earned," says Rep. Bob Filner (D) of California, who chairs the veterans' affairs committee. "We cannot fund the war, but fail to fund the warriors."

73,000 US Military DEAD

73,000 US Military
Dead Since Gulf War 1?
From Sources
10-24-7

Note - These figures do not include Iraqi civilian deaths (estimated at over 1 million at the hands of Bush 41 and the 8 years of the Clintons, and 1.2 million at the hands of Bush 43 - ed)


The Department of Veteran's Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has released the truth because they need the American People to know our military is literally, destroyed.

They cannot release these horrific numbers via the chain of command because they are under orders to conceal the truth at all costs, so they let slip a report which now cannot be "un-slipped."

Here are the facts and a link to the government source to prove these facts:

More Gulf War Veterans have died than Vietnam Veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, May 2007, Gulf War Veterans Information System reports the following:

Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths Since Gulf War One: 73,846
­ Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847
­ Deaths amongst Non-Deployed Veterans: 55,999

Total "Undiagnosed Illness" (UDX) claims: 14,874

Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906
- Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911
- Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed Veterans: 1,212,995

Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims 36%

Soldiers, by nature, typically don't complain. In other words, the real impact of those who are disabled from the US invasions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Nations, is not fully reflected in the official Veterans Affairs numbers. When soldiers are sent to murder women and children they tend to never be able to live normal lives thereafter.

Why are the government numbers of 3,777 as of 9-7-7 so low? The answer is simple, the government does not want the 73,000 dead to be compared to the 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. What the government is doing is only counting the soldiers that die in action before they can get them into a helicopter or ambulance. Any soldier who is shot but they get into a helicopter before he dies is not counted.

73,000 dead amongst the U.S. soldiers for this scale operation using weapons of mass destruction is not high - we expect the great majority of U.S. soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq to die of uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill.

From a victors perspective, above any major war in history, The Gulf War has taken the severest toll on soldiers.

More than 1,820 tons of radioactive nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshima's. The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and can wipe out more than a third of life on earth. Gulf War Veterans who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off over a number of years.

So far, more than one million people have been slaughtered in the illegal invasion of Iraq by Bush 43 alone. Birth defects are up 600% in Iraq--the same will apply to U.S. Veterans.


Statistics and evidence published by the government and mainstream media in no way reflect the extreme gravity of the situation.

Those working for the government and media must wake up and take responsibility for immediately reversing this U.S. Holocaust. Understanding who is manipulating all of us is critical for all of us.

For those of you who doubt the veracity of this story, who believe it can't be true because if it were true, you would have heard it from the government or from the main stream media, can see the proof yourselves directly from the United States Department of Veteran's Affairs web site: here it is...

Source: http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf