The Pentagon reports the grand total of U.S. killed, wounded, injured, and ill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars reached nearly 67,000 at the end of July 2007.

Dr. Gene Bolles - Listen to the audio clip (or download)

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Dr. Gene Bolles

BOLLES “To look at these young people and see them without arms and legs and see them badly burned, see them blinded, see them with irreversible severe head injuries, see them badly injured never to recover again – to see all that and then say ‘this is a horrible cost and is what we’re doing worth this?”

GLANTZ This is “The War Comes Home, the warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Radio. I’m Aaron Glantz. Dr. Gene Bolles is neurosugeon from Boulder, Colorado. He was hired as a private contractor after the 9/11 attacks to serve as the chief of neurosurgery at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which treats wounded soldiers air-lifted out of Iraq and Afghanistan. He returned to the United States in 2004.

BOLLES “You listen the rhetoric in our news media going back and forth on both sides of the issue, and that’s pretty much geared up to be a political conversation, but what I saw has nothing to with politics. It has to do with the horrific injuries that you see and what is worth that?”

GLANTZ Before going to Landstul, Dr. Bolles had spent 30 years repairing bodies broken by disease, accidents and brutality. He was drafted into the military during the Vietnam War, and served two years as a flight surgeon, witnessing the suffering of both U.S. military personnel and Vietnamese civilians. But he says that didn’t prepare him for the sight of American service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BOLLES “To look at these young people and see them without arms and legs and see them badly burned, see them blinded, see them with irreversible severe head injuries, see them badly injured never to recover again – to see all that and then say ‘this is a horrible cost and is what we’re doing worth this?”

GLANTZ The most common injury soldiers in Iraq experience is brain damage from blasts from roadside bombs. The military formally diagnosed more than 2,000 cases of traumatic brain injury from October 2001 through January 2007. But most observers believe the number is much higher and a recent Army study found that 18 percent of troops who have been to Iraq likely suffered at least some brain damage from improvised explosive devices, or IEDS.

BOLLES “I think everyone has probably heard of the shaken baby syndrome. That’s a syndrome whereby if you shake up the brain or just have a concussive effect with a change in barometric pressure that you can have an injury to the fibers within the brain itself, within the neuro-fibers. And these unfortunately do not show up on the tests that we use many times and yet these patients do have injuries that end up being less obvious at least initially and it’s only as they begin to function – they may have headaches, dizziness, the inability to learn, they may lose ability to recognize words.”

GLANTZ What especially concerns Gene Bolles is that many of these cases may go untreated for years.

BOLLES There are rather subtle changes that show up as time goes on. Often these patients are seen by doctors and appropriate tests are done and you don’t see anything so you’re told that well, can’t find anything abnormal it must be emotional or this or that or the other, but these patients go on and often can remain permanently disabled in this way

GLANTZ Pentagon officials report that the total number of U.S. killed, wounded, injured, and ill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars reached nearly 67,000 at the end of July 2007. In July 2007, there were 1,720 U.S. casualties. This means more than 55 U.S. service members killed, wounded, injured, or ill each day. You’re listening to “The War Comes Home,” Warcomeshome.org, a project of KPFA Ra