“The latest deaths bring to 540 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States launched the Iraq war in March.” So reads today’s Associated Press headline. What you won’t find in that headline is the number of soldiers who have been wounded in that same period of time.
These numbers are stuffed into later paragraphs, so unassuming, they read as an afterthought. But most of these men and women, injured on the battlefield, are now back home or in the hospital contemplating how much their lives have changed. Beyond the mental anguish, there is the adjustment to a broken body, to stitches and painkillers, lost limbs and sleepless nights. For them, the war doesn’t end when they come home. Instead, it’s a different fight.
Guests:
Steven Tice, formerly Director of the Post Traumatic Stress Treatment Program at the American Lake VAMC. He also was a casualty of the Vietnam War – wounded in the Battle for Hamburger Hill in May 1969
Major Lanier Ward, former Operations Officer for 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment — wounded July 2003 n Baghdad
Sara Corbett, writer for the New York Times Sunday Magazine.