Casualties of War

My little brother was crying. He was hiding behind Mom's leg and she was holding the baby as we made our way down that long dreary hallway. Mom held his hand and he held mine and our tight little unit weaved in and out of wheelchairs, down the avocado cement block corridor. I was oldest and I struggled to be brave.

The long bleak hallway was packed with men, mostly young men. The walls, especially, were lined with them--some sitting in wheelchairs, others lying on gurneys. They were just parked along this hallway for no reason in particular that I could tell. All of them--alone. Not a single one had a visitor. Our little troop were the only "un-enlisted personnel" that I remember seeing at all there.

It was 1970 and we were visiting my father at Bethesda Naval Hospital. I visited him there two times before he died.

I have never forgotten walking down those halls, though I didn't think of it much until here recently.

There was this heavy, palpable weight of human suffering that hung in the air so thick it was hard to breathe. You almost could not pull it through your nostrils. Anger. Despair. Grief. Wretchedness hung in the air. Suffering and sacrifice boiled in my lungs.

I've been remembering that walk, that hall, a lot recently. For some reason I can't get it out of my mind. All those boys, some of them their eyes so empty, and others so full of rage and pain. Many of them hooked up to tubes and wires, looking so much older than they probably were. They visit me in my dreams lately. I'm having trouble sleeping.

I remember one boy in particular. He was in a wheelchair and his whole bottom half was gone?-not just his legs, everything. I don't know how he was even sitting up. I remember I was wondering how he went to the bathroom when my mom suddenly grabbed my shoulder and gave it a ferocious shake, hissing, "Don't stare!"

I dropped my eyes immediately. I wanted to hide behind my own eyelids. I didn't want to see him seeing me see him. I didn't want to be seen either. I didn't want my whole complete seven-year-old self to be seen by these boy/men who were missing pieces. It felt like taunting and made me feel guilty.

I remember how resentment roiled off of some of them. It didn't feel directed at me exactly but it still scared me just the same. It felt like barely contained fury. It felt dangerous.

And I remember one poor young man, one poor, sweet Boy, (and this is the man that I still cry about. This is the instant that is seared into my psyche, burned into my brain with crystal clarity to this very day) who tried to be nice to me…who tried to speak to me…who told me I was a "pretty little girl". But I could not look at him or speak back. His face was so messed up...

I am still ashamed of that. I wish I'd done different for that poor man.

Lately I am hearing about Americans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans who've been gravely injured, and I think of those boys, the ones filed in that hallway like broken pencils stuffed in a drawer.

I am hearing stories about this new batch of wounded, left waiting for weeks and even months at places like the Fort Stewart military base in Georgia, waiting untreated for proper medical help. They've received little more than basic triage.

I hear the walls at Fort Stewart are white instead of avocado.

I hear injured Reservists and National Guard soldiers are receiving the worst treatment. At Fort Stewart, they wait for months, some with horrific injuries, in hot concrete barracks with no air-conditioning or running water.

The press barely mentions these casualties. No one discusses the severity of these wounds.

Sen. Bob Graham, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, complained in September 2003 that he couldn't learn how many US soldiers had been wounded in Iraq because the administration refused to release the information.

December 2003, Congressman Gene Taylor (D. Mississippi) complained the Pentagon deliberately undercounted combat casualties. He cited the case of five Mississippi National Guardmen wounded in a booby-trap bomb explosion. Incredibly, the military list their injuries as "non combat." The truth emerged only when Taylor spoke face to face with the most seriously injured of the five at Walter Reed Medical Center. He has since sent a memo to Congress asking "if anyone else has had a similar incident."

The media only reports on those killed in action. Few Americans have any idea of the shockingly high number of soldiers wounded in Iraq. We now know that estimates of US soldiers, sailors and Marines medically evacuated from Iraq through Germany due to "battlefield wounds, illness or other battlefield reasons" was between 11,000 and 22,000 at the end of 2003.

That was at the end of 2003.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (Rep.-Nebraska), a Vietnam veteran and former deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration, petitioned Donald Rumsfeld for the "total number of American battlefield casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq".

He asked these questions:

"What is the official Pentagon definition of "wounded in action"?

"What is the procedure for releasing this information in a timely way to the public?" and

"What is the criteria for awarding a Purple Heart?" [Purple Hearts are awarded to those wounded in combat or to the next of kin of those killed or who died later from wounds received in action.]

An accurate count of Purple Hearts and the dates they were awarded is significant because it is an official record of the total number of battlefield casualties.

After six weeks, Hagel received this reply, "The Department of Defense does not have the requested information."

2004 has seen escalating violence and death. Since May, the number of American soldiers killed in action has increased every month over the month before. How many soldiers are injured for every one who dies? How many file drawers do we have where we can hide these poor mangled bodies and minds?

And what about the ones for whom we don't think we need drawers? The ones like John Allen Muhammad, the sniper killer from Washington, DC? Muhammad was a special forces soldier in the first Iraq war. By all accounts he was a loving husband, father and community leader--before he went to Iraq. Muhammad came back from Iraq full of anger and violence. He was a different man. He was a killer.

The issue of emotional and psychological disorders has also received scant public attention, but it is very much on the minds of the medical community. One publication, created for clinics that will treat returning war veterans, states,

"Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of many different ways a veteran can manifest chronic post-war adjustment difficulties. Veterans are also at risk for depression, substance abuse, aggressive behavior problems, and the spectrum of severe mental illnesses precipitated by the stress of war."

Depression. Aggression. Stress. That was what I was feeling when I walked into Bethesda Naval Hospital back in 1970. Plus a heaping helping of fear and guilt and shame ?- at least some it, not at what they'd been forced to do in a time of war but, at least some of it, at the gnawing feeling that they had "let their Country down."

No.

No. Their Country let them down.

And their Country is letting them down all over again.