8,000 Soldiers With Traumatic Brain Injury

The military has not made data documenting the number of wounded soldiers coming home from Iraq readily available.

Rolling Stone, one of the remaining outlets of true investigative journalism, did a heartwrenching story on one courageous soldier who took a deflected bullet through his skull into his brain thereby suffering a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Not only was a large amount of brain tissue destroyed but, from the wound and subsequent operation, he lost approximately one-third of his skull.

Rolling Stone asked the question about the number of soldiers returning from Iraq with a TBI and got an official and shocking answer - 8,000 with additional "thousands" coming home with Post Concussion Syndrome. The cost of treating and supporting these soldiers - people who've made a great sacrifice doing what was asked of them by their country - will undoubtedly be enormous. More important is the human costs in terms of pain and emotional stress these permanently injured soldiers and their families will bear.

Sgt. Scott Thorne, the soldier in the story, is a man who defies death and who courageously battles his severe injury all the while with the noble yet impossible notion of rejoining his team. Thorne was team leader of highly trained recon scouts who were being used outside of their intended purpose - though apparently due to necessity - for police work in Mosul. One must wonder about the secondary cost we as a country incur when we lose the benefit of having such a highly skilled and motivated soldier. It can't be easy to replace a soldier like Sgt. Thorne and I wonder if the war in Iraq is decreasing our to perform recon and other highly specialized military functions in situations much more critical to fighting terrorists than policing Mosul was.