The loud, clear voice of Iraq war's wounded vets

By Norman Solomon

Special to Newsday

IN wartime, the silence of the American dead is a vacuum that the powerful in Washington try to fill. While loved ones are left with haunting memories and excruciating sadness, the most amplified political voices use predictable rhetoric to talk about ultimate sacrifices.

But the wounded do not disappear. They can speak for themselves. And many more will be seen and heard in this decade. Thanks to improvements in protective gear and swift medical treatment, more of America's wounded are surviving — and returning home with serious permanent injuries.

During the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War, 76 percent of American troops survived combat wounds. But in this century, the U.S. military's surgical teams "have saved the lives of an unprecedented 90 percent of the soldiers wounded in battle," the New England Journal of Medicine reported in December.

Back in the United States, thousands of survivors are now coping with injuries that might have been fatal in an earlier war. Many have lost limbs or suffered other visible tragedies, but often the effects are not obvious. The Iraq war is causing an extraordinarily high rate of traumatic brain injury, and the damage to brain tissue is frequently permanent.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002211043_wounded18.html

For the Swofford quotes.