Interesting comment at a Tuesday morning breakfast with Army Col. Kevin Galloway, the service’s pain czar*:
You used to drive around outside a military post and what was outside — pawnshops and tattoo parlors. You know what you see now? You see pain clinics popping up. They’re meeting an unmet need that’s inside the gate. Some
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The Department of Veterans Affairs released a study Friday into how to care for veterans…of 1991’s Gulf War, notorious for a spate of ailments lumped together as Gulf War syndrome. It notes:
Of the 529,034 Servicemembers who served in Operation Desert Shield (of whom approximately 6.8 percent were women), 152,126 Veterans filed
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Only a month ago I was unable to disclose my status as a gay man in the military. Fast forward to Tuesday of last week, when I stood as a guest to a party celebrating the launch of the anthology “Our Time“, a collection of stories from other gay, lesbian, and straight servicemembers, negatively affected by the “Don’t Ask” ban on open …
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Marines are tough, but they know what isn’t. That’s why they’re now getting two layers of protection to shield their southern zones from improvised explosive devices (h/t TPM.)
Army leaders have been telling us for years that the post-9/11 wars have been chewing up their armor and other weapons. This week, the service’s top docs made clear the same thing is happening to the troops, although much of it isn’t combat-related.
Some 15% of active-duty troops – that’s one out of seven – is undeployable for …
I know I’ve been radio silent for the past few weeks. I’ve been getting my ducks in a row for the post-DADT era. Here’s a look into an interview I had with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross on ‘Fresh Air’ which aired this Wednesday. In the interview, OutServe’s Josh Seefried and I discuss what it’s been like living under “Don’t …
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David Wood, a one-time Timester, now covers the military for the Huffington Post. He has just launched an ambitious effort into how the nation is tending to the wars’ worst-wounded. It’s well worth your while to check out the video above, and the opening piece of …
Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the most troubling legacies of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of troops and their families are affected. How do we ensure the help – both medical and financial – is going to those who need it? Well, that requires, one would think, a uniform yardstick so folks …
The current rate for amputations among U.S. troops serving overseas – primarily in Afghanistan – has reached a post-9/11 high, a full 10 years after the U.S. invaded. This chart (click to enlarge), from the Pentagon’s just-released September Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, (see page 19) shows that 19.5 troops per month are …
It was less than a week ago that we noted General Dynamics had landed a Pentagon contract to help tend to the bruised brains of troops suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury. We took note of it because we’ve seen big defense contractors increasingly move into the medical field in recent years. The latest evidence surfaced Tuesday, …
Tattoos are as old as war. Lots of soldiers get them, with military motifs, girlfriend’s names, or various guns, skulls or dragons adorning their skin. Some get something less ornate. Private First Class Kyle Hockenberry had For those I love I will sacrifice stitched into his flesh. He had no idea how prescient he was.
In January, I spent a month embedded with the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division in Kandahar. For four weeks, I went from outpost to outpost, and midway through that month, I heard from my old wingman that he too was in theater. Because I had to return to the U.S. to finish school, Travis Parker and I made plans for me to try and …
Back when I first started covering the military some dozen or so wars ago — in the late 1970s — General Dynamics was busy building the F-16 jet fighter and a plethora of other weapons. But it sold the F-16 line to Lockheed in 1993, and spun off its missile and space divisions, too. It seems to be moving into a different line of …
