Anna Quindlen: Scrap Metal, Not Soldiers (Taking Care of Vets)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8767915/site/newsweek/

For my money one of the finest war movies ever made was the 1946 Oscar winner "The Best Years of Our Lives." There isn't a battlefield in it. Instead it's a story that begins as three soldiers head back to their hometown. There they fight against disenchantment, dislocation and the pervasive feeling among their families and friends that they should just forget about the horrors they've witnessed and get on with their lives. One of the most powerful shots is of a long row of fighter planes, stripped of their propellers and sitting in an empty field. Overnight they'd become scrap metal.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq says we may be looking at a substantial pullout by next spring. As Al and Fred and Homer did on screen almost 60 years ago, American troops will be coming home, trying to find their footing, remembering what they'd prefer to forget. Will the United States government serve as well as they have, or will the newest addition to city streets be a guy sitting cross-legged in front of a Starbucks with a cup and a cardboard sign that says IRAQ WAR VET?

More than a million men and women have served in war zones since the terrorist attacks of September 11. The percentage of those wounded on the battlefield who have survived is the highest in the history of combat, in part because of advances in body armor, in part because of sophisticated on-site medical facilities. The result is that there will be a group of Iraq-war vets with catastrophic injuries: multiple amputations, head trauma, horrendous burns. They may need medical intervention for the rest of their lives. Yet already there has been troubling testimony before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that severely injured soldiers are being pressured to sign discharge papers before they've received adequate care.

That's not even counting those who come home with serious mental-health issues. Last week the Army's surgeon general reported that three to four months after their return 30 percent of soldiers had problems ranging from depression to full-blown posttraumatic stress disorder. But some veterans have told local papers that VA hospitals are overwhelmed and that they're waiting months for treatment. The VA itself estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans of various American wars are homeless on any given night, many as a result of substance abuse.

[The Traveler]

1. Compared to what these guys have gone thru

I had a cake walk. But I quit my defense contractor job in 1989 in quest of sanity and something resembling a clean life and was in and out of therapy for a decade. It is really hard to return to normal life after you have "seen the amazing elephant", as the old saying goes. My step son is going over in September. I expect to spend years helping him reassemble his head. Other guys helped me. Quite a few of them are dead, now. Overdose, suicide, accident ... funny how that happens.