Exclusive: Iraq vet, rattled by IEDs, ‘carried Ziploc bags full of pills’

[unhappycamper]

Links to Part I and Part II of this story.


Exclusive: Iraq vet, rattled by IEDs, ‘carried Ziploc bags full of pills’
By James Foley
Thursday, September 9th, 2010 -- 8:10 am

Sergeant Spencer Kohlheim had been wounded on two separate attacks in Iraq. They were concussions; invisible wounds that caused migraines and led to an increasing sense of hopelessness according to his family and close friends.

"The IED is our number one injury right now," said the manager of a transition program for returning soldiers at the Northern Indiana Veterans Affairs hospital in January of ‘09. "IEDs can cause traumatic brain injury without being hit by any fragments. Depression is a standard reaction to traumatic brain injury.”

The New England Medical Journal has linked depression to multiple concussions, or mild traumatic brain injury, within the three to four months after soldiers return home.

gt. Patrick Clouse, 27, was there when Kohlheim got out of the base hospital after the second IED attack. “He had constant headaches,” Clouse said. “He was taking meds all the time; those heavier Ibuprofen they give you after the IEDs. There would be very few days that he didn’t have a headache.”

“He was depressed during his two week leave this summer,” his ex-wife Beth said. “He called me on July 4th when he was already back in Iraq. That was his excuse for not seeing the kids. He said he’d been that way since he’d been hit by the first IED."

[LaurenG]

1. "The problems deepen: Multiple concussions linked to depression"

I can only imagine - how sad. Thank goodness for Raw Story and other news outlets like them.

[gratuitous]

2. Oh come on

Next thing you're gonna say that there are limits to American military power, and that violence isn't a panacea! Why'd we send so many weakling mama's boys into combat, anyway? Prolly the Democrats' fault! Besides, they're all volunteers, so if they have 40 years of unrelenting pain to look forward to, that's not my problem, so don't raise my taxes.

Let's see, did I get all the Republican reasons for not giving a shit about this? Maybe I should do some more hippie punching. I guarantee you will see all the nastiness of that first paragraph and more if this story gets any traction (but it probably won't, since the media don't like to dwell on the inevitable results of the policies they endorsed so zealously).