War's legacy: Its human toll

War's legacy: Its human toll
By Philip Dine
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/16/2008

WASHINGTON --As the Iraq war ends its fifth year, a dominant legacy of the conflict has turned out to be the human toll on those who have fought it.

The nature and sheer extent of American casualties — officially in the tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands have sought medical help — has caught the U.S. government off guard.

From wounded soldiers who faced dilapidated conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to troops whose mental problems have been overlooked, Iraq veterans have paid the price

"The government was not ready for the casualties to come home," says Brad Trower, 29, a Marine Corps veteran from High Ridge who was injured twice in his tour in Iraq.

When Trower returned to St. Louis in 2005, suffering from traumatic brain injury after two vehicles he was riding in were blown up within a month of his arrival, he got "zero response" initially from local Veterans Affairs officials, though he is now doing well.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says the nation has failed to heed the lessons of Vietnam, a war whose veterans constitute half of the 400,000 people sleeping on America's streets tonight.

Though the number of veterans today is smaller, the percentage of veterans who become homeless, commit suicide or face other social problems, partly because of a lack of treatment, is similar to that of the Vietnam era, Filner says.

"We know how to deal with it," he says, "but we apparently don't want to deal with it."

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