By Greg Palast
OpEdNews.Com
His name's Maurice. He's 26 years old with a face like an angel and a
computerized prosthesis where his left leg used to be. His name's Victor
and he still seems like a boy. His cherubic face, set against blond hair,
is plagued by an unanswerable question every time his restless eyes
inadvertently fall on the stump: "Why?" His name's Steve and you
couldn't imagine a more All-American soldier -- that is to say if he
hadn't lost his right arm. A real good patriot, he's always in control of
himself and he has the air of an American hero. His name's Rob. Bound to a
wheelchair, he's mad at the whole world and explodes in a barrage of
insults at everyone and everything for the loss of his right leg and the
uselessness of his left.
Maurice, Victor, Steve, and Rob are just a few of the thousands of GI's
returning from Iraq -- often with one or more limbs amputated, flown in
with little notice under the cover of night and brought to Walter Reed
military Hospital in Washington, D.C. Here, they're operated on, treated,
fitted with prosthetics when possible, generally medicated, and given
psychological and physical therapy. For the record, Walter Reed is the
hospital where wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam went. No fanfare
for these heroes.
On top of the injuries they've had to endure to their bodies and hearts,
they come home to be ignored by mainstream American media. Only an English
TV station, Channel 4, considered it newsworthy to go to the hospital to
interview the injured soldiers. Of course, all interviewees must be
selected and briefed by army leadership in advance of any conversations
with journalists. Curiously, the casualty statistics released by the
Pentagon contradict those of the U.S Army. While the Pentagon contends
that 2722 soldiers have been wounded in action and 417 in non hostile fire
as of March 1, the U.S. Air Force confides that it has flown approximately
12,000 wounded soldiers into Andrews Air Force Base over the past 9
months. With the severity of injuries sustained, it seems like the
Pentagon's reduced estimates are meant to camouflage a scandal that could
cost George Bush his re-election.
"They come here [to Walter Reed Hospital]19 or 20 old and when I see
them leaving with missing limbs - I've seen up to 3 limbs gone off people
and I don't think in our generation, we've seen this amount of harm done
to young people", explained Major General Delaune on public radio in
Minnesota. "During the Gulf War, there were about 3 soldiers wounded
for every death. In the current Iraq war, there are 7 wounded for every
death", says an article titled "New Technologies and Medical
Practices Save Lives in Iraq" in a Knight-Ridder newsaper. The facts
support this statement: the Kevlar vests the soldiers now wear save lives,
not limbs. England's newspaper The Guardian reports that the medical
personnel, overwhelmed, work 70-80 hours a week, and according to CBS,
Washington's largest military hospital has had to borrow beds from its
cancer ward to meet the swollen needs of its prosthetics ward. Still the
hospital can't handle the load, and several wounded soldiers are being put
up in a nearby hotel. This writer was able to meet with some of them there
after having been prevented from continuing her interview in the ward,
because she hadn't obtained the permission of the army, passed its screen
tests, and the soldier she was interviewing hadn't been briefed as to how
to respond. Against all odds, she had made it through the security gate at
the entrance to the military-medical complex, into the building, to the
5th floor.
"Do I have to get naked for the interview? Can I keep my shoes on? !
Oops! I said 'my shoes'" I have to get used to saying 'my shoe' Rob
snapped bitterly. "It's like yesterday, I went to buy a pair of
sneakers and I messed with the young guy's head at the store. He turned
red as beet when I asked him if he would sell me one, just one shoe, at
half price." Rob laughs sardonically. But Rob, always cutting,
isn't finished evening his score with humankind, or with himself. He
defends his pain with sadistic, self-effacing jokes. " Look, I lost
one leg! I must have left it outside." To another wounded
soldier:" You didn't find it by chance, did you? I think I might have
left the foot near the trash can." His last masochistic jest is
received with suppressed awkward laughter and turned heads. But Rob takes
pride in his sense of humor.
December 3, 2003. Abu Gharib prison. Rob's Humvee, accompanied by two
other vehicles, is suddenly caught in an ambush. His jeep is hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade. "It took the quick-reaction forces 20
minutes to get me, and here I'm bleeding, the flesh of my left leg is
blown off and my right leg is gone" GONE!" He says this while
repeatedly folding and unfolding the empty leg of his blue-jeans. Somehow,
you know he's leaving out the worst. The interviewees only hint at it,
saying the madness, destruction, blood, and burnt flesh can make the
strongest man lose his mind. In their silence, the soldiers mute
themselves much like the mainstream media, downplaying the bloodbath on
the battlefield to keep up the unflinching image of an individual (or
nation) at war. The Times Picayune was one of the few newspapers to
describe the X-rated scene : "Explosions shatter and sever legs and
arms. They char flesh and drive debris deep into the soft tissue that
remains. Unattached muscles, nerves and tendons dangle. Red-hot shrapnel
sometimes punctures torsos below waist-length body armor, ripping bowels
and bladders. Concussions bruise skulls and brains. Soldiers thrown into
the air are injured again when they hit the ground." "Wanna see
a $100,000 leg?" asks Rob pointing to his computerized
prosthesis, the same one that Maurice got. Numerous soldiers tell the same
story.. They were riding in a Humvee when it got rocked by an I.E.D
(improvised explosive device). But, Victor's story is different. Victor
was stationed in Afghanistan for over a year. When a grenade landed on the
floor of his truck, he picked it up instinctively to throw it as far away
as possible. Only when he went to throw it, he realized he was surrounded
by fellow soldiers. He held it in his hand and "blew up" with
it, losing his right arm, and damaging is entire right side. "I
held it because I didn't want to hurt anybody else. There were too many
people all around me." For this heroic act Victor should
receive a medal ("one of the highest medals you can get"
according to Maurice). But while George Bush would be the one to give him
a medal, you get the impression from Victor that he's going to wait a long
time. Unfortunately for Victor, the war in Afghanistan hardly exists in
the media, and in contrast to Maurice who, in spite of his pain, wears a
mask of happiness, and to Steve, to whom Bush gave a Purple Heart, Victor
is pissed.. He's over patriotism. "My father is a Vietnam Vet. He's
really upset. Imagine, my life's ruined and now my brother is going to
Iraq." He's disgusted by disability pay. "They'll give me
50% disability. I'm making $30,000 a year, so that means 14 or 15G. How am
I supposed to live on that?" Not exactly the Pentagon's
poster-boy amputee. Victor could very well launch his pain and anger right
at Bush's face. And what about Rob? Rob, the kind of anti-hero who's
always kept hidden from the public view, is like a time-bomb waiting to
explode. Meanwhile, a warlords' pet gets good press. Paul Wolfowitz, wrote
this caption in Time Magazine, below the photo of Saddam Hussein's
disheveled head: "'We Got Him!': To Sgt. Maurice Craft, A Real
American Hero." That's conservative compassion for you.
Beyond the physical pain (many amputees repeatedly refer to pain emanating
from their now missing limbs), it's the trauma, and anxiety for the future
that haunt these soldiers the most. All of the interviewees, with the
exception of Steve, complain of not being able to sleep, in spite of
increased daily doses of sleeping pills and anti-depressants. Bitter, Rob
pulls outs a plastic bag full of pills and empties it on his bed. 'See, I
have a whole bag of medications for different times of the day and night.
I can't sleep all night no matter how many pills I take. I nod off, that's
all. They had to increase the doses. For nothing." "It's
so hard. That's why they give us so much medication, a lot of it's just
for depression," explains Maurice.. " My arm's cut off but
my whole side is taken, and now, I'm gonna spend my life wondering if I'm
gonna find a girlfriend"" shoots Victor, eliciting a
spontaneous reaction from Maurice. "At first, my wife didn't want to
come and see me like this. She said she just couldn't. It was really hard
'cause I was afraid she was gonna do just like a lot of wives or
girlfriends, who leave their men shortly after they see them in the
hospital. I have two daughters" But it's alright now." " Thank
God I'm single. I wouldn't want to have to go through what the other guys
do. There's this one guy who lost his sight and had both of his arms
blown off. His wife is pregnant but he's never gonna be able to hold his
baby in his arms," says Rob.
The majority of soldiers interviewed believe that the Iraqis were too poor
to go on living the way they were, and that it was therefore necessary to
remove Saddam Hussein regardless of whether he posed an imminent threat to
the US. Only Rob thinks differently: "They could have overthrown him
themselves, those f**king Iraqi's"I'm convinced that the people we are
training there are the ones who are fighting us, because the screening
process is so weak. I have no respect for those f**king Iraqi's. The more
of them that die, the better. They use women to hide their weapons
and kids to detonate them, but we have to stick to the Geneva
Conventions" At least in public." And in private? "I'm not
gonna answer that one," he said insinuatingly. Victor, and to a
lesser degree Maurice, think that they were just pawns for this
administration. " At Baghdad International Airport, there were 15
I.E.D.'s every two weeks. Each time there was an explosion, the whole
compound would get shut down. The computers and the telephones would go
off all of a sudden" And we would know that a soldier had just been
killed 'cause they didn't want anyone to be able to reach the family
before the Army could."
Reprinted from GregPalast.com:
http://www.gregpalast.com/
