Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 U.S. Casualties a Year
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(Sun, 11 May 2008 16:12:23 -0500 (CDT)) ---
May 10 / 11, 2008
CounterPunch Diary
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 U.S. Casualties a Year
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
A friend of mine whos a librarian was recently reviewing job applicants.
Asked his qualifications in library skills, one man put machine-gunner.
He was a vet whod served in Falluja. The library is in a state school
here in the US that, last fall, had 650 such vets enrolled. The young man
got the job but soon became irked by what he saw as the trivial
preoccupations of his colleagues. He applied for a job at a nearby police
department. All over the country police departments are advertising for
Iraq vets. Three-quarters of the way through the hiring process, the PD
signaled to him that things looked good. Then, in rapid succession, three
Iraq vets in the area were involved in lethal episodes: two murders and
one suicide. The PD immediately called the young man in for a second
psychological evaluation, then nixed him for the job. Hes 24. He cant
find anything satisfying to do and is thinking of re-enlisting. Hes
against the war.
Those violent episodes are just part of bringing the war home. Itll be
active on the home front for years to come. Just under one in three31
percentof those whove been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from
a brain injury or stress disorder or a mix of both these conditions.
On April 17 the RAND Corporation released a study of service members and
veterans back home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The 500-page study was
titled Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries,
Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. It was sponsored by a
grant from the California Community Foundation and done by twenty-five
researchers from RAND Health and the RAND National Security Research
Division. From last August to January, the team conducted a phone survey
with 1,965 service members, reservists and veterans in twenty-four areas
across the country with high concentrations of those people. Some had done
more than one tour.
The Associated Press and major newspapers outlined the RAND reports
astounding numbers and then the story slid from view, which is a very bad
thing, since the report disclosed in compelling numbers that the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan are steadily filling every American community with
psychologically and physically mutilated victims of war. Many of them will
endure lives saturated with physical pain and mental turmoil or confusion.
A proportion will be prone to alcoholism, drug use and violence, sometimes
deadly. Their partners and their children will suffer all measure of
scarring.
Pentagon data show that more than 1.6 million military personnel have
deployed to the conflicts since the war in Afghanistan began in late 2001.
The RAND study put the percentage of those suffering from PTSD and
depression at 18.5 percent, thus calculating that approximately 300,000
current and former service members were suffering from those problems at
the time of its survey.
Some 320,000 service members, about 19 percent, according to RAND, may
have experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while in a war zone.
These injuries have ranged from concussions to severe head wounds. Julian
Barnes, in the Los Angeles Times, pointed out in his April 18 story that
a chief difference is that in Iraq and Afghanistan all service members,
not just combat infantry, are exposed to roadside bombs and civilian
deaths. That distinction subjects a much wider swath of military personnel
to the stresses of war.
We call it 360-365 combat, Paul Sullivan, executive director of
Veterans for Common Sense, told Barnes. What that means is veterans are
completely surrounded by combat for one year. Nearly all of our soldiers
are under fire, or being subjected to mortar rounds or roadside bombs, or
witnessing the deaths of civilians or fellow soldiers.
The RAND report says that about 7 percent suffered from both a probable
brain injury and current PTSD or major depression. Only 43 percent
reported ever being evaluated by a physician for their head injuries. Only
53 percent of service members with PTSD or depression sought help over the
past year. Various reasons were offered to RAND researchers for not
getting help, including worries about the side effects of medication,
reliance on family and friends to help them with the problem and fear that
seeking care might damage career prospects.
The news stories tended to lay stress on the fact that almost half of
those with brain injuries or suffering from depression and stress disorder
were seeking help. As Terri Tanielian, the projects co-leader and a
researcher at RAND, told the Associated Press, There is a major health
crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Missing amid the brief stir aroused by this devastating report was any
adequate editorial commentary, or inquiry to political candidates, about
the obvious fact that every month that US troops remain deployed in Iraq
and Afghanistan adds inexorably to this terrible total. But discretion is
the order of the day, exemplified by Dr. Ira Katz, top mental health
official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who, as CBS News reported
on February 13, e-mailed an aide, Shh! Our suicide prevention
coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among
veterans we see in our medical facilities.
Heres how the figures add up, just for Americans. The wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq have thus far produced 300,000 psychological casualties, 320,000
brain injury casualties, plus 35,000 (probably understated) officially
reported normal casualties. This adds up to 655,000 US casualties in
Iraq and Afghanistan, an average of just under 101,000 Americans killed or
wounded every year since the wars began. If the idea of 101,000 casualties
for every extra year in Iraq and Afghanistan gets out and infects the
voting public, imagine the effect on the currently torpid national debate
over leaving in five years versus fifteen years!
"Tom Davos" (tomdavos@yahoo.com).
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