Textbook for War Surgeons citizens should face

They were afraid the American public couldn't take "looking at the pictures" when the troops, medics and surgeons along with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have to see it all in real life? I've seen the pictures. All it takes is to do a few Google searches on the image link and there they are. This is what happens in war. There are body parts blown off and that is why there are so many amputations. Battlefield medical advances have saved lives that used to be lost. Are the pictures horrific? Absolutely, but considering the public does not even want to see the coffins or read the reports of how they died, anymore than they want to see the pictures of the wounded at Walter Reed and Bethesda, they are not very apt to read this either.

If our sensitivity is so insulted by having to read reports or view pictures, then we have no business ever sending men and women into combat in the first place. If we refuse to even see the pictures or face what they have to live with then we will never, ever be able to take care of the wounded or understand how so many can end up with PTSD.

I don't post the pictures I see on this blog. Not for the sake of the civilian reader. I dare you to look at the pictures and face the fact that you were not there to see it happen, but they were. I avoid posting them for the sake of the veterans reading this blog. They don't need to be reminded of what they lived with by pictures being posted. People who can't handle the results of war will not even bother to read the book at all.

It's safe to care and not be touched by any of this. I don't have that luxury. I have nightmares and sometimes find it really hard to get the images out of my brain. I never saw it in real life. I never faced having my life on the line in combat or faced with having to take a life. They have!There are times when even I can't get over it easily. I've been looking at the pictures of warfare for over 25 years. The only thing that has changed is the fact more survive now. If you still cannot understand why the rate of PTSD is so high, then you really need to expose yourself to at least some of what they are going through and living with. I believe if every American adult had to see ten pictures, every veteran with PTSD would be taken care of and honored for what we asked them to endure.




Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Audio: Textbook for War Surgeons
Dr. Stephen P. Hetz, an author of “War Surgery,” discusses the new textbook and why he thinks it’s needed.

To Heal the Wounded
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: August 5, 2008

The pictures show shredded limbs, burned faces, profusely bleeding wounds. The subjects are mostly American G.I.’s, but they include Iraqis and Afghans, some of them young children.

They appear in a new book, “War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007,” quietly issued by the United States Army — the first guidebook of new techniques for American battlefield surgeons to be published while the wars it analyzes are still being fought.

Its 83 case descriptions from 53 battlefield doctors are clinical and bone dry, but the gruesome photographs illustrate the grim nature of today’s wars, in which more are hurt by explosions than by bullets, and body armor leaves many alive but maimed.

And the cases detail important advances in treating blast amputations, massive bleeding, bomb concussions and other front-line trauma.

Though it is expensively produced and includes a foreword by the ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff, who was severely injured by a roadside bomb in 2006, “War Surgery” is not easy to find. There were strenuous efforts within the Army over the last year to censor the book and keep it out of civilian hands.

Paradoxically, the book is being issued as news photographers complain that they are being ejected from combat areas for depicting dead and wounded Americans.
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