Ron Kovic, author of Born on the Fourth of July
, himself a paralyzed veteran of the Vietnam war, recalls what it was like coming home wounded and wonders what it must be like for those coming home from Iraq.truthdig:
I cannot help but wonder what it will be like for the young men and women wounded in Iraq. What will their homecoming be like? I feel close to them. Though many years separate us we are brothers and sisters. We have all been to the same place. For us in 1968 it was the Bronx veterans hospital paraplegic ward, overcrowded, understaffed, rats on the ward, a flood of memories and images, I can never forget; urine bags overflowing onto the floor. It seemed more like a slum than a hospital. Paralyzed men lying in their own excrement, pushing call buttons for aides who never came, wondering how our government could spend so much money (billions of dollars) on the most lethal, technologically advanced weaponry to kill and maim human beings but not be able to take care of its own wounded when they came home.
Will it be the same for them? Will they have to return to these same unspeakable conditions? Has any of it changed?...
A series in the Washington Post shows us that the good news is that things have changed, the bad news is that things haven't changed much. 'Building 18' of Walter Reed Medical Hospital is described as a decaying warehouse for the wounded, infested with cockroaches and mice, where those disabled by the war are given little care.
Washington Post:
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Links to the entire WaPo series can be found here.
Patients are left to find their own way through the maze of bureaucracy. Patients who's paperwork has been lost in the shuffle have to prove they were wounded in theater. One patient had to show his Purple Heart, another had to bring a photo. The outpatient service is staffed by other outpatients -- some with severe disabilities of their own...
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Tags: news | politics | war | iraq | Military | Bush | veterans | Jeff Jacoby | bullshit
