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Edited on Wed Jan-05-11 01:47 PM by Rozlee
I remember back in the early 80s, transferring on the 92 Via Bus near the Audie Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio to catch the #4 that took me to my classes at San Antonio College. I'd sit uncomfortably listening to the unkempt Vietnam vet on one side of me, mumbling to his invisible friend. Another might be pacing back and forth, driving me crazy with his nervous tic of jingling the coins in his pocket; another would be sitting looking into space with the now famous Thousand Yard Stare. I'd gratefully scramble into the #4 when it arrived, making sure I didn't sit too close to any of them if they got on. Blessedly, I didn't know that a couple of decades down the road, I'd be laying on a gurney in the hallway of Audie Murphy Hospital, suffering from brain swelling from my own service in the Gulf, angrily yelling at my own imaginary friends, making visitors at the hospital wince as they sidled by me. I had wondered for a while though, why in the intervening years, I saw less and less of those agonized Vietnam vets as time went by.
Could it be that while over 58,000 was the official tally that the military admitted to, some put the number of Vietnam vets who committed suicide as high as 150,000?
Sergeant Merlin German (Nov. 15, 1985-Apr. 11, 2008) was referred to as the "Miracle Marine." Severely burned over 97% of his body in Iraq by a roadside bomb and written off by all doctors as sure to die, he eventually recovered his ability to walk. He set up a charity for child burn victims; he was an angel of mercy to other of his injured brethren, endlessly giving of his time and selflessness. After dozens of successful surgeries, he died at BAMC after minor surgery following a skin graft on his lip.
The Pentagon didn't list Merlin German on it's casualty list for months. It probably wouldn't have at all if he hadn't made national news first as an "uplifting" human interest story and then as a follow-up story when he died to eulogize his goodness and his dedication to others despite his own suffering. Angry and fierce lobbying from groups like iraqbodycount.org and others to The Military Times finally got them to grudgingly list German in their "We-don't-do-body-counts." But, how many others have there been like German that fell through the cracks and haven't been listed in the tally of the fallen?
By a coincidence, I worked in civil service as a civilian nurse at BAMC from 1996-2000 while I was an Army Reservist. At that time, there were no injured vets on the wards. Our ortho floors had young soldiers with sports injuries or retirees with knee replacements. Our burn units had civilians from several parts of the state and even out-of-state. Our Code Blues were elderly patients kicking the bucket. While hospitalized there for rehab in 2005, all I saw was young amputees, medical and nursing staff running to answer Code Blues from the Burn Unit and from the ICU where new injured had arrived from Walter Reed overflow. The names of Iraq War dead are official as they're listed coming in from their coffins from Dover AFB. But, if the Pentagon was so reluctant to name Sgt. German as a casualty, what chance does a soldier have that died far from the glare of media attention?
And the suicides, heaven help us, the suicides. More Iraq War vets have committed suicide in the period of 2008-2010 as have (officially) died since the war started. We've already also had 100,000 casualties, injuries in combat. Injuries often cause suicidal ideation. And the tsunami of sicknesses being (under)reported, not from Agent Orange, but from the more sinister Depleted Uranium, sicknesses that are a time bomb in the DNA of our vets and returning troops; a time bomb that will not only affect them, but perhaps their own children as well.
The Iraq War body count. It's not the one the Pentagon has posted. And it's the gift from hell that will keep on giving.
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