War is Hell

He was one of America's first defenders on Sept. 11, 2001, a Marine who pulled burned bodies from the ruins of the Pentagon. He saw more horrors in Kuwait and Iraq.

Today, he can't keep a job, pay his bills, or chase thoughts of suicide from his tortured brain. In a few weeks, he may lose his house, too.

Gamal Awad, the American son of a Sudanese immigrant, exemplifies an emerging group of war veterans: the economic casualties.

More than in past wars, many wounded troops are coming home alive from the Middle East. That's a triumph for military medicine. But they often return hobbled by prolonged physical and mental injuries from homemade bombs and the unremitting anxiety of fighting a hidden enemy along blurred battle lines. Treatment, recovery and retraining often can't be assured quickly or cheaply.

These troops are just starting to seek help in large numbers, more than 185,000 so far. But the cost of their benefits is already testing resources set aside by government and threatening the future of these wounded veterans for decades to come, say economists and veterans' groups.

"The wounded and their families no longer trust that the government will take care of them the way they thought they'd be taken care of," says veterans advocate Mary Ellen Salzano.

How does a war veteran expect to be treated? "As a hero," she says.


And this is the way we "support our troops." This is a shame. Our government who happily collects our tax dollars as pay, no longer represent us. They stand for, they support their special interests and wealthy friends.

A longer break for these brave troops was shot down by the idiot who bellows and coined the phrase, "support the troops." The idiot and his supporters pointed at the left and called us traitors and anti-American, yet, it is we who see the injustice here. It is we who see the pain and suffering. They see dollar signs.

My friend Stram over at 12 Seats has a live troll who is one of the last of the true bushies. He still name calls and let's face it, he's an idiot too. He called me a moron. Why? Because I said McCain was one of his and he said, "McCains a liberal you moron." These jackasses vote! Scares the hell out of me!

My point about Hank... I mean anonymous... is that he will read this and not see the true meaning. He will shrug and utter, "war is hell you moron."

Hell is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to blow up innocent Iraqi's yet refusing to care for the wounded soldiers who do nothing more than their commander in chief asks.

Every morning, Awad needs to think of a reason not to kill himself.

He can't even look at the framed photograph that shows him accepting a Marine heroism medal for his recovery work at the Pentagon after the terrorist attack.

It might remind him of a burned woman whose skin peeled off in his hands when he tried to comfort her.

He tries not to hear the shrieking rockets of Iraq either, smell the burning fuel, or relive the blast that blew him right out of bed.

The memories come steamrolling back anyway.

"Nothing can turn off those things," he says, voice choked and eyes glistening.