Starting today, The Huffington Post begins a ten-part series, Beyond the Battlefield -- an exploration of the physical and emotional challenges, victories and setbacks that catastrophically wounded soldiers encounter after returning home from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Beyond the Battlefield is the result of several months of reporting and scores of interviews by the HuffPost's veteran military correspondent, David Wood. It is a deeply-felt, hard-won and wide-ranging exploration of what it means for a soldier to suffer extraordinary, disabling wounds -- and how friends, families, and hometowns, as well as the military and medical communities, adjust and respond to the physical and emotional struggles these wounded warriors endure.
Today you'll meet Tyler Southern, who lost both of his legs and an arm to an IED blast in Afghanistan last year. Southern has gone from nightmares in a hospital bed at Walter Reed to a new marriage, in part because of stunning medical advances that have stretched the boundaries of what it means to rescue and revivify fallen soldiers who once would have been left for dead. Southern also has re-entered the world due to his own stubborn resilience. "Cryin' ain't gonna grow anything back," he says. "I was raised to find the silver lining."
In future articles, you'll also meet soldiers so torn asunder by war that they continue to struggle with anger, depression, and alienation, with little hope of finding any tether back to the world they once knew. And you'll meet unsung heroes such as the spouses and parents of disabled soldiers, who remain the most powerful and unflagging advocates of wounded warriors despite having to confront daily humiliations and frustrations. Many of these caregivers give up jobs and their own identities to commit themselves to spouses or children whom war has unwound.
As one mother, Luana Schneider, so memorably notes in the series, her son went off to war "in the best physical condition of his life," only to return home "in pieces." Yet Schneider has spent the last several years feeding, clothing, and bathing her son, and continues to wrangle with the military bureaucracy to try to ensure that he gets proper care because, she says, she's driven by a simple dictum: "That is my child, and you owe my child respect.''
While Beyond the Battlefield is the most direct handiwork of David Wood, many talented folks at the HuffPost have played a role in bringing this series to life and their work is stellar. There are several moving videos accompanying the series, thanks to our video producer, Adam Kaufman, and our executive producer, Ken Shadford; there is an array of compelling, interactive data visualizations and infographics, courtesy of Chris Spurlock; there is an abundance of riveting photography, which Chris McGonigal helped engineer, and the words flow along nicely on the site thanks to deft editing help from Jeff Muskus. Get ready to see more superb narrative journalism from this team.
In the meantime, for those of you who would like to offer help of your own to severely wounded and disabled soldiers, please visit our Impact page, where you will find a list of resources that can help make that possible.
Follow Timothy L. O'Brien on Twitter: www.twitter.com/timobrien
Free service is provided to veterans by organizations such as the VFW, American Legion etc.
HEY!!!!
HAVEN'T YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION???!!!!!
We want to END THE WARS!!! Once and for all. Isn't that the best help we can give to our troops???!! Shouldn't they only be fighting wars to actually defend THIS nation???
AMEN 1000 TIMES! It should be PAINFULLY OBVIOUS to us all that, in the eyes of Big Oil, our troops are NOTHING BUT EXPENDABLE CANNON FODDER.
'Nuff said.
At the final one, as she tried unsuccessfully to brush off a scuff from the dirty floor, she quietly began to cry. The tailor was interrupted from his pinning by a young Marine coming in to pick up his uniform - for the last time.
His hands and ears were burned off, and his face very scarred and disfigured from healed burns.
We kept our eyes politely averted as he discussed the fitting and made sure the correct stripes and patches were sewn in place for his final discharge.
It put the wedding dress "diaster" into perspective. The tears stopped immediately.
I wanted to put my arms around that young man. I wanted to cry. I wanted to thank him for his service. I did none of those things, his stoic and proud bearing did not invite such behavior. All I could offer was a kindly smile, and respectfully hoped he knew how much I wished him well. There was no hand to shake..
I was a Personnel Clerk during Vietnam,in- processing hundreds of returning soldiers. I thought I knew about war.
Thank you for presenting this series.
Our soldiers have been lied to by the great apparatus of the state. They have been told they are defending us. But they are not. They are endangering this country without knowing it.
The best service we can thank veterans for would be to refuse to serve. Hell no, we won't go. But that response is not likely to come from a mercenary army where three squares and some benefits trump all moral questions.
But people still can and still do mean it when they say it. It's too bad that it has been overdone to the point of becoming devoid of meaning and emotion.
Beyond the battlefield will be the soldier's rejection of the lies that have cause so many of the invaded, and the ivaders, to die.
Even the slaves at Rome revolted. Do our soldiers have the courage for that? God, I hope so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mn-1LuLhrw
No one was protected on 9/11 by the clueless doofus Keystone Cops MIC. No one will be down the road. You can bet on it.
How about focusing on jobs and restoration of the middle class first. It's a lot less complex, a lot less controversial, and, in the end, it benefits lots of people, including our soldiers, who Republicans conveniently abandon once they've met their needs.
He once told a man whose son was going to war, not to expect his son to be the same when he came home. Soldiers are forced to do things they never thought they would ever have to do, but they do it for our country, and we should be there for them when they come back to us.
Thank you Timothy for doing these stories.
Now they call it PTSD, and EVERYone and ANYone can get that diagnoses for any minor thing.