News From the Cause
Wounded Warriors, Families Deserve Best Care, Chiarelli Says (Defense.gov)
August 16, 2011
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2011 – The military has made great strides in warrior care over the past decade of war, but much work remains to be done, particularly when dealing with the invisible wounds of war, the Army vice chief of staff said today.
Speaking at the Warrior Transition Command’s Warrior Care and Transition Program Training Conference in Orlando, Fla., Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli discussed the challenges posed by the complexity of today’s war injuries and the initiatives in the works to improve care for troops and their families.
“There’s no more important work than caring for our own,” the general told the audience. “It’s absolutely critical we do everything we can to assist those service members and families dealing with [injuries] now and in the future,” he said.
The nation has been at war for nearly a decade, he said, and it remains a difficult endeavor in many regards. The terrain is physically demanding, and the enemy’s primary mode of attack is the homemade bomb, he noted, which has left in its wake lost limbs, severe burns and complicated invisible wounds of war, such as traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.
“These invisible injuries represent the signature wounds of war,” Chiarelli said. “Given the complexity and, in some instances, the latency of symptoms, it’s very likely we’ll be dealing with them and helping veterans cope for decades to come.”
The military has made great progress with the physical wounds of war, Chiarelli noted. He said he often challenges audiences to find a negative article about how the Army is caring for service members with the loss of a limb or multiple limbs. They’d be hard-pressed to find one, he noted.
“The advances made in prosthetics in the past 10 years are nothing short of amazing,” he said. “I can go to the hospital and look a kid in the eye who had been in a blast and tell him, ‘Six months from now, your life will look a lot better than it looks today.’”
He can’t, however, make the same promise to a service member with TBI, the general said.
“Unfortunately, the study of brain injuries is in its infancy,” he said. “We just don’t know enough on how to fully heal, or in some cases, even effectively treat injuries to the brain.” As a result, the general noted, service members and their families dealing with these injuries often are discouraged, frustrated and even disheartened.
Chiraelli recalled meeting a young Army wife at a TBI roundtable. Her husband had been injured in a blast in Iraq, he said, and was struggling to cope with TBI along with post-traumatic stress. The children were having a tough time understanding why their father was withdrawn and depressed since he looked physically fine, the general said, and the wife was overwhelmed by the situation. She was afraid to leave her husband alone, even to run to the store for a carton of milk.
“These are the challenges we’re dealing with now,” he said. “While there’s promising research under way, the fact is we have a long, long way to go. Even when it seems you are doing everything you possibly can for these soldiers, in some instances, it’s just not enough.” Click here to view more
