This Forever War is just beginning so a story on sending our severely wounded back into Combat! When will we ever learn? What is the future?

Peter Paul and Mary when will they ever learn, Where have all the flowers gone?



Please listen To Where have all the Flowers Gone? I call the song When will they ever learn! As I put the story together of arming the world to the teeth by Russia and the US as we guarantee Forever war to continue to send our broken soldiers into!Oh when will they ever learn? Sadly never!

Once again I set out to discuss the race to war around Russia and the arming of the world by Russia and the US as Russia makes missile and rocket deals with Syria and Jordan which surprised me. Thinking of the many developing facets of this developing Forever War I went full circle in my thought process when I saw the story of sending our Broken soldiers back into combat. It led me to thinking of Peter Paul and Mary, Where have all the flowers gone! I listened to it wondering when will they ever learn? Knowing Bush is sending severely wounded soldiers back into combat and that this Forever war is just beginning I thought I would focus on sending our walking wounded back into combat!

The battle within
Soldiers who struggle with pained bodies or troubled minds still get deployed, sometimes on crutches or antidepressants, by an Army pressed to fill the ranks in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the weeks before Christmas last year, a brigade of battle-bruised soldiers left Colorado's Fort Carson for its third round of war in Iraq. Sgt. Colin Barton was getting Botox shots in his forehead to kill the relentless pain from a brain injury. Army doctors said he should not wear a helmet — a safety requirement for the flight to Iraq. The Army sent him anyway. Sgt. Joshua Rackley, recovering from his eighth knee surgery, was classified as permanently injured. The Army sent him anyway.

Master Sgt. Denny Nelson and Sgt. Joseph Smith didn't have time to recover from predeployment surgeries. Nelson hobbled with crutches; Smith wore a post-surgical boot. Sgt. Tim Graham brought a sleep-apnea machine. Sgt. 1st Class Walter Overton had a shoulder injury and couldn't lift his gear. Spec. Joseph Leon was popping morphine pills to dull the nerve damage to his groin. The Army sent them too. Five years into the war in Iraq and six years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Army is sending soldiers with physical and mental injuries back to war, at times overruling physicians' classifications of soldiers as "nondeployable."

Facing demands unprecedented in the history of the all-volunteer force, the Army has deployed soldiers with slings and crutches and some who need machines to help keep them alive through the night. Thousands are taking pain, sleep or antidepressant medication, with sometimes deadly consequences. The pressure to send marginal soldiers grew with the "surge" of troops to Iraq in January 2007, an effort that Army leaders say has succeeded in stabilizing the nation's government and reducing sectarian violence. Yet from the onset of the Iraq war, deployment pressures have been evident. An Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center analysis shows that 43,000 service members — two-thirds of them in the Army or Army Reserve — were classified as nondeployable for medical reasons three months before they deployed anyway. Multiple tours take their toll: Some soldiers who discussed their cases with The Post requested anonymity, fearing retribution, but their accounts were corroborated through Army records, interviews, observations or medical records that they or their families provided. It gets worse please read it
* Knowing this is just geginning and still just taking shape and that sadly we will never learn I have to wonder about the future?

James Joiner
Gardner Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com