Healing minds, bodies broken by war

Healing minds, bodies broken by war
BY NOEL TOWELL

7/10/2008 1:00:00 AM
James Peake knows a bit about repairing bodies and minds that have been shattered on battlefields.
The US Secretary of Veterans' Affairs is a decorated Vietnam veteran, a medical doctor and the man in charge of the massive department, with more than 250,000 employees.

Dr Peake is in Canberra to join some of Australia's top veterans' affairs experts in a colloquium on ways to rehabilitate soldiers returning from conflict with mental and physical damage.

The former US Army general took a stroll yesterday afternoon around the Australian War Memorial in the company of his Australian counterpart, Alan Griffin.

Dr Peake said that modern military medicine had improved the survival rates of soldiers on the battlefield, but that was just the beginning for the process of rehabilitation

''The ability to treat far forward on the battlefield and then evacuate quickly has gotten soldiers, sailors airmen and marines back to the continental United States very quickly, whereas before it would take a long time. '' he said.

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