European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 25, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 stars and stripes june 2007 wounded troops come now what by Marilynn Marchione the associated press More than 800 of them have lost an a fingers or More than 100 Are Doz ens need tubes and machines to keep them hundreds Are disfigured by and thou Sands have brain injuries and mangled these Are americas War a toll that has received less attention than the troops killed in depending on How you count they num Ber Between and More of them Are coming with injuries of a scope and magnitude the government did not predict and is now Strug gling to if we left Iraq we would have the legacy of All these people for Many years to said Jeffrey editor i chief of the new England Jour Nal of Medicine and an adviser to the department of veterans the military simply want prepared for its own Suc Cess at keeping severely wounded soldiers he survival rates today Are even higher than the record Levels set Early in the thanks to body Armor and better for every Soldier or Marine killed in 15 others have sur Vived illness or injury unlike previous few of them have been the Signa Ture weapon of this improvised explosive or red has left a signature wound traumatic brain soldiers hit in the head or knocked out by blasts getting your Bell rung is the military euphemism sometimes have no visible wounds but a fog of War in their they can be depressed and unaware they Are Back concerns grow about the Walter Reed hos Pital scandal and problems with some a nursing Homes have led republicans and democrats to Call for better care for this new crop of a Lucky few get Cadillac care at one of the Vas four pol Trau a where the most com plex wounds Are treated with state theart techniques and Whiz bang devices like Power knee or smart ankle pros thet others Battle bureaucracy to see doctors or get Basic benefits in less Ideal no one knows what the Multi How the military counts the wounded in Iraq int As clearcut As it might earlier this the department of defense changed How it tallies War related injuries and dropping from the Overall count those who didst require airlifts to a military some ques Tion that saying an Accident that occurs in a War zone is a Cost of War that should Here is a breakdown of defense department numbers from Iraq As of june 2 total for All troops ill or injured in Iraq those needing medical air transport troops were wounded in action billion to billion Harvard economists estimate of lifetime health care costs for both Iraq and Afghanistan billion a Yean Cost of disability payments for soldiers who fought in the first Gulf which lasted less than two months and produced few sources department of veterans Harvard economist Linda interviews with a and military mate Cost will Harvard University economist Linda Bilmes estimates the lifetime healthcare Tab for these troops will be billion to billion a wide Range but a huge sum no matter How you slice counting the wounded can be earlier this the department of defense changed How it tallies War related injuries and dropping those not needing air transport to a Mili tary Hospital from the Bottom line Bilmes thinks this is Disi Genu an Accident that happens while there there is a Cost of particularly when you fac Tor in the length of deployment and injury inducing conditions like very hot carrying heavy and More vehicle accidents because it is not Safe to walk she for stress related the military tries three hots and a cot warm meals and a Chance to most of the time it works and troops return to their said Michael Kil who tracks this information for the defense of the troops air evacuated to the military Hospital in land Stu 20 percent return to Iraq and 80 percent go Back to the United states for More care or disability of the Hal million troops who have left Active duty and Are Eligi ble for a health about on third have sought the most complicated cases end up at one of the four poly trauma these were formed after Doc tors realized they were missing problems amputees who were unable to put on their prosthetics because of undiagnosed brain in and Guys who could re member their therapy dogs name but not their troops at these hospitals have an average of six major impair ments and 10 specialists treating the important thing to realize is you could have All of them at once trouble said Steven director of the poly trauma rehabilitation Center at the Tampa a medical Center in most of these injuries Are caused by red which Send a pressurized air wave through delicate tissues like the sometimes sending it smacking against the inside of the Skull and shearing fragile nerve connections that control memory and other spinal cords virtually anything can be damaged by the pressure Many of these you cant see on an such As Glass shards that can cause internal Scott in prior one of every five to seven troops surviving a Warre lated wound had a traumatic brain the military if s much higher in this a Pilot project at Walter Reed in 2003 to screen 155 patients re turning from Iraq found that 62 percent had a brain this is a very rapidly evolving area As a with no screen ing agreed upon set of symptoms for or even a Bill ing Kilpatrick Joshua Pitcher already had a purple heart from being shot in the hip in and returned to a grenade blast in february left him with a traumatic brain injury and shrapnel in his arms and Pitcher was the first severely wounded servicemen Ber flown directly from Iraq to the United the plane had to Fly slowly and at Low Altitude to avoid air pressure that would further damage his the right Side of his Skull was removed to allow his brain to swell and doctors will replace it with a plastic prosthesis Joseph Jay Briseno was shot in the Back of the neck by an iraqi in the Early months of the one of the most severely he is now a on a breathing Blind and unable to but aware of what has happened to he is a patient at the James Haley veterans Hospital in Thomas Deierlein a West Point graduate who served five years in twelve years in he returned from a business trip to find he had been called up from the three months after arriving in a snipers Bullet shattered his Pelvis As he worked with trash collectors to rebuild a Baghdad i would not be alive if this happened in any other he photos by Chris for every Soldier or Marine killed in 15 others have survived illness or injury