from T. Christian Miller, ProPublica,
and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR
June 07, 2010 (view source)

WASHINGTON, D.C.--The military medical system is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems, an investigation by ProPublica and NPR has found.

So-called mild traumatic brain injury has been called one of the wars' signature wounds. Shock waves from roadside bombs can ripple through soldiers' brains, causing damage that sometimes leaves no visible scars but may cause lasting mental and physical harm.

Officially, military figures say about 115,000 troops have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries since the wars began. But top Army officials acknowledged in interviews that those statistics likely understate the true toll. Tens of thousands of troops with such wounds have gone uncounted, according to unpublished military research obtained by ProPublica and NPR.

"When someone's missing a limb, you can see that," said Sgt. William Fraas, a Bronze Star recipient who survived several roadside blasts in Iraq. He can no longer drive, or remember simple lists of jobs to do around the house. "When someone has a brain injury, you can't see it, but it's still serious."

In 2007, under enormous public pressure, military leaders pledged to fix problems in diagnosing and treating brain injuries. Yet despite the hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into the effort since then, critical parts of this promise remain unfulfilled.

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Since this is a family story and it would involve way too many "Dog" references I am going to bail on the talking dog bit for today. It will be back to amaze and annoy tomorrow.

It is Veterans day and I have been thinking about the Veterans I have known. We have an epic myth in this nation that all soldiers are heroes. There is this dysfunctional idea that somehow the service to ones country in uniform absolves the faults inherent in all people. To me this is a dangerous thing all the way around. It is not that those who serve willingly or otherwise in the military do not deserve a measure of respect for being willing to put themselves in harms way, they do. It is just the fetishization of service as a universal way of elevating people is harmful. By setting the expectations of veteran this high we nearly universally guarantee disappointment.

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Military service does change those who serve, sometimes in good ways, other times in not so good ways. Since today is the day we honor the service of those in uniform, I thought I would share some of the experiences of my family in the military and what they have gained and lost from it.

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There is very little need to tell anyone what happened at Fort Hood yesterday. A Major who specialized in treating soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder went on a shooting rampage killing 13 and wounding 30 more. This is a tragedy in many ways, for the families of the dead, for the wounded and their families, for the family of Maj. Hasan, for the soldiers of Fort Hood and for the nation.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

In a few days, assuming Maj. Hasan survives the wounds from being shot, we will start to find out the specifics of why he lost control and inflicted this horrible damage on the soldiers on his base, but there is a larger issue the Dog would like to address here. Have we gone past the point of sustainability for the Armed Services in our two wars?

The war in Afghanistan has been waged for the last 8 years and the Iraq war has been going for 6 years. We are at the point of having the longest war of our history (depending on when you clock the start and stop of the Vietnam war) and already we are past the longest time frame we were fighting in two wars or two fronts in our history.

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