Walking Wounded

A good piece from the Seattle Times on the often ignored wounded soldiers who are returning from Iraq and speaking out.

IN wartime, the silence of the American dead is a vacuum that the powerful in Washington try to fill. While loved ones are left with haunting memories and excruciating sadness, the most amplified political voices use predictable rhetoric to talk about ultimate sacrifices.

But the wounded do not disappear. They can speak for themselves. And many more will be seen and heard in this decade. Thanks to improvements in protective gear and swift medical treatment, more of America's wounded are surviving — and returning home with serious permanent injuries.

Take a moment and see if you can't take a guess as to how many soilders have been injured in combat and sent back home. Have you made your guess? Let's see how close you were.

This month, the Defense Department released data showing that the official number of U.S. troops "wounded in action" in Iraq has gone over the 11,000 mark. Notably, 95 percent of those Americans were wounded after May 1, 2003.

Anthony Swofford, veteran of the first Gulf War and author of the book "Jarhead" talks about how a young man's possibly romaticized visions of war and heroic death can be altered in combat. (I may have to pick up this book.)

"More corpses are en route" to the United States, former Marine Anthony Swofford anticipated in late 2004, "and more broken bodies, shattered psyches, damaged souls. "

"The romance of a combat death evaporates when combat arrives," he wrote this winter, reflecting on photos from the funerals of seven American soldiers who perished in Iraq.

"I wonder, then, when the men and woman whose burials we see in these photographs lost their romantic attachment to combat, killing and death, their own death and the deaths of others. Be certain that at some point they entertained such fantasies. Perhaps only for a few days of basic training; possibly, like me, until they landed in theater."

It seems that some of these walking wounded are finally banding together and organizing to speak out.

Even at this early stage, Iraq war veterans are gradually becoming more outspoken. Robert Acosta, for example, is a 21-year-old former U.S. Army specialist who re-entered civilian life in early 2004 — just six months after losing his right hand when a grenade landed next to him in a vehicle on a Baghdad street.

"I was there, and I'm proud of my service," he said. "But I really questioned the war once I was in the hospital. ... I feel like we — the guys who went in to do the job — were lied to."

Several months ago, Acosta joined the fledgling group Iraq Veterans Against the War. He speaks with clear authenticity.

"A lot of people don't really see how the war can mess people up until they know someone with firsthand experience," he says. "I think people coming back wounded — or even just mentally injured after seeing what no human being should have to see — is going to open a lot of eyes."

Founded in midsummer 2004, Iraq Veterans Against the War has expanded from eight to 150 members while organizing forums and teach-ins around the country and attracting some appreciable media coverage. The group's national coordinator, Michael Hoffman, joined the Marines in 1999 and participated in the invasion of Iraq.

"War is dirty, always wrong, but sometimes unavoidable," he says. "That is why all these horrible things must rest on the shoulders of those leaders who supported a war that did not have to be fought."

That's a very sad pile of issues to have to deal with, but it's good to see some people with the courage to take a stand. We should give these guys our support.