Greatest Cost of Iraq War: 1,000,000s of Lives Filled With Horrible Flashbacks, and Perhaps Little More

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 08:32.

I saw this sadly honest bumper-sticker in Cleveland Heights the other day - the same day an article in the New York Times pointed out a horrific circumstance of our attacks on the Middle East - 100,000s of concussions among our forces alone... imagine how many of the people of the countries we have brought to war are suffering the same injuries - far more than our soldiers, who are suffering as follows:

Mr. Owsley is part of a growing tide of combat veterans who come home from war with mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions, caused by powerful explosions. As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, in Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity. These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble the lives and livelihoods of returning soldiers.
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Norm, I'm a four year USAF

Submitted by DickBachert on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 09:54.

Norm, I'm a four year USAF vet from the Vietnam era and knew a number of those whose names grace that black monolith on the Mall.

While I lament the loss of or injury to ANY of our military folk, I feel compelled to remind you that it was MUSLIM RADICALS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST WHO ATTACKED US FIRST! 

Does 9-11 ring any bells there?  And that was the SECOND attack on the WTC by these folks.

We can fight and kill these "brave" enemy combatants -- who follow none of the rules of engagement most of the rest of the world observes and have NO compunctions about strapping on C4 and ball bearings and wading into crowds of civilians to start their journey to Allah -- THERE or we can wait for them to come HERE, possibly to the mall where YOUR wife shops or school YOUR children attend.

You need to understand that what's going on here is a resumption of the Crusades and THEY restarted the festivities.

 

"I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust...I forgot to ask that they be years of youth."

Publius Ovidius Naso

Duty

Submitted by lmcshane on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 10:55.

  Dear Mr. Bachert--Thank you for defending our country and thank you for commenting at RealNEO.  The keynote speaker at the democratic convention noted that our country needs to restore our sense of duty. 

You have served your country.  It is time we all served our country by voting to elect a president who can reinstill that sense of duty.  We all owe our country national service. 

The keynote speaker noted that President Bush squandered his opportunity to bring our citizenry together after 9-11.  President Bush did not ask neighbor to help neighbor--instead, he asked us to shop.  Remember Catch-22 Mr. Bachert? We need to move beyond money and ideology.  We need to roll up our sleeves, regardless of skin color, religion and beliefs, and fix America.

the power of nightmares

Submitted by Susan Miller on Thu, 08/28/2008 - 17:17.

I am the once dependent of a career USAF officer. Yep, he had top security clearance and I was reared on the largest AF Base in the world during Vietnam. Along with my playmates, I drank traces of agent orange in the bayou water while they tested that defoliant upstream of where we swam. I ate the Vietnamese food that the refugees made in the restaurants they established as soon as they made it out of the camps on "the reservation". I heard the planes fly over - the little fighter jets my Dad was testing (not as a pilot, but as a Human Factors engineer). My arms were green from many copper bracelets - fathers and brothers and uncles never came back, some returned in body bags. I met the pilots and knew the veterans and heard their stories.

I support our veterans, but like my father, I hold a deep disdain for a government that engages them on false pretenses.

Here's some interesting video for late night viewing since you seem to think that "they started it", (which makes me imagine the voices of elementary school children defending themselves from punishment for fighting.)

The Power of Nightmares

part 1 Baby it's Cold Outside

part 2 The Phantom Victory

part 3 The Rise Of Political Fear

Interestingly this did not make it to the PBS stations in the US. Kinda makes me wonder... why not?

Does this shed some light on how others see the US?

Can we move on toward diplomacy? I hope so.