A Long Journey Home
For the wounded, medical miracles are just the beginning
Each war is indelible in its own way, leaving imprints that change the course of future wars. Death and injury are a certainty, but the particulars of soldiers' suffering reflect the time, the place, even the very nature of the conflict in which they have fallen. From the shellshocked troops of World War I to the veterans of the first Iraq war afflicted with Gulf War syndrome, treating the wounds of combat often exposes the cruel limits of battlefield medicine.
From this vantage point, the war in Iraq is a remarkable departure from the past. Vastly improved emergency medicine is saving an unprecedented number of lives. And yet that very success presents sobering challenges for the system that cares for returning soldiers.
In Iraq, almost 9,000 soldiers have been wounded; more than 15,000 have been medically evacuated for nonbattle injuries and illnesses; 1,217 have died. As the efforts to quell the insurgency there intensify, the pace of injury and death is sure to quicken. Medicine will save many of the newly wounded, but it will take much more to heal their wounds.
With Elizabeth Querna, Susan Brink, Angie Cannon, Nancy E. Shute, Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, Daniel Gilgoff, Carol Susan Hook, Jennifer L. Jack, Nancy L. Bentrup, Allegra Moothart, Ann M. Wakefield, Jill Konieczko and Monica M. Ekman
This story appears in the November 29, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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