Caring for Vets' Diseases, Stress Could Cost Canada $11.5 Billion

While this is about Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, keep in mind that our own media has been asleep instead of covering most of what our troops are going thru.

Caring for Vets' Diseases, Stress Could Cost Canada $11.5 Billion
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

The true price of fighting in Afghanistan. First of two articles.
By Crawford Kilian

TheTyee.ca
Canada's price for fighting in Afghanistan has not yet been fully paid -- or even known. Liberal and Conservative governments have avoided reporting the cost of the war. But Carleton University researcher David Perry estimates that as of March 2009, Afghanistan has cost us $4.78 billion. By 2012, he says, the war will have cost us $7.55 billion.

Those killed in the war pay the highest price, of course, but the survivors pay too, without glory, for the rest of their lives.

This is the first in the The Real Costs of the War in Afghanistan seriesMore than 360 Canadians have come home wounded. More than 4,000 Canadian Forces veterans are receiving benefits for post-traumatic stress or "operational stress injuries." Thousands more, veterans and those currently serving, are dealing with PTSD and related problems on their own.

hepatitis A and E,
typhoid,
cholera,
malaria,
dengue,
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever,
tuberculosis,
West Nile virus,
typhus and others.
Even the dust of Kabul and Kandahar is a hazard, causing respiratory problems and skin lesions that can result in infections.

Leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sandflies, is a notably nasty illness

Pneumonia that won't quit
go here for more
http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/03/26/AfghanStress/