It’s been over ten months since I filed my application with the Veterans Administration for benefits related to a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. That’s three hundred or so days waiting to find out if one part of the VA – the Veterans Benefits Administration – agrees with another part of the VA – the Veterans …
Military Health
Fixing the Human Wreckage of War
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Thousands of soldiers, gravely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, become as much as they can be through months of rehabilitation in the Army’s Warrior Transition Units. Every once in awhile a story pops up about how things fells apart for a specific WTU …
On the Front Lines: Better Living Through Chemistry
We reported on the growing use of prescription drugs by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq more than three years ago. The Pentagon is finally catching up. It wants to spend $23 million next year for drug testing to make sure troops aren’t illicitly taking legal drugs like Valium and Vicodin.
But the House Appropriations Committee has …
Reinforcements Dispatched to Afghanistan to Salvage Soldiers’ Brains
The battle against the never-ending detonations of roadside bombs in Afghanistan — which is killing, as well as maiming, thousands of U.S. troops each year — has signed up two new recruits: a pair of state-of-the-art MRI machines are going to begin operating in Afghanistan in hopes of detecting, and treating, traumatic brain …
Dr. Frankenstein — or Military Miracle Worker?
A U.S. military doctor deployed to Iraq subjected troops suffering from traumatic brain injuries to treatment with an unapproved drug, in which he had a financial stake, that may have harmed them, Pentagon investigators report. But a colleague of the doctor insists the probe is a perplexing witch hunt — and that the medication helps …
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
This is a photograph that NPR photographer David Gilkey took at a military base in Afghanistan. Tom Bowman, NPR’s ace Pentagon correspondent, says “This is NOT a joke.”
Bless the “Battlefield Angels”
Soldiers call them “Doc,” but Scott McGaugh calls the military’s medics “Battlefield Angels” in his new book by the same name. Not actually doctors — but not really nurses, either –they’re out on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, armed with guns as well as gauze, and are usually the first ones tending to the physical and …
Memorial Day in the Rearview Mirror: Soldiers as Heroes, and Victims
Elspeth Ritchie was on the front lines dealing with the military’s mental-health issues as an Army psychiatrist, including several senior positions following 9/11, for nearly a quarter century. She has studied and tended to troops’ minds on assignments around the world, including in Cuba, Iraq, Somalia, South Korea and Vietnam. She
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The Few, the Proud, the Broken
There’s an easy way to figure out which military service has the toughest basic training — all you have to do is count how many recruits break their legs. Using that standard, there’s no competition: the U.S. Marine Corps crushes its recruits’ lower-leg bones far more often than the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard or Navy.
The data …
Top Officer Warns of “Catastrophic Outcome” If Military and Nation Continue to Drift Apart
The nation’s top military officer worries that the growing chasm between the U.S. armed forces and the American public means disaster for the country. “Long term, if the military drifts away from its people in this country, that is a catastrophic outcome we as a country can’t tolerate, can’t afford, in no way,” Admiral Mike Mullen, …
War Through “Enemy” Eyes
Members of the Zumwalt family have been proud members of the U.S. military since the Revolution. It was that tradition that led James Zumwalt to join his father and brother in the Navy, before transferring to the Marines. During his 26 years in uniform, the now-retired lieutenant colonel saw service in three conflicts — Vietnam, …
Memorial Day, 2011
Memorial Day is a strange holiday when so many Americans are disconnected from the wars now underway. Did you know that over the past week, more than a dozen U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan? It’s easy for me to keep track: I get Pentagon press releases every time a U.S. soldier is killed, sprinkled in among those …
Losing a Leg, But Gaining Wings
A freshly-minted Air Force pilot has completed his training with only one leg. First Lt. Ryan McGuire is the first-ever in Air Force history to do so. “I hope this shows people to never give up on their dream,” he says. “You have to keep your goals in mind and have faith in yourself.” McGuire lost his lower right leg in a boating …