Tag: T. Christian Miller

Brain Injury Investigation: Army Responds

After the first part of the report by Danny Zwerdling and T. Christian Miller of NPR and ProPublica there was the following, before the second part, that aired on the NPR show ‘Talk of the Nation’.

Army Responds To Brain Injury Investigation


Guests Danny Zwerdling, NPR national desk correspondent and Gen. Peter Chiarelli, U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff

June 9, 2010 An NPR investigation found that the U.S. military often fails to diagnose traumatic brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The investigation also revealed that many soldiers receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems after suffering brain injuries.

NPR Player to stream discussion

Investigative Journalism into Combat Traumatic Brain Injuries

Daniel Zwerdling {link takes you to a page of his reports}, of NPR, has been doing stellar investigative reporting on PTSD and TBI, now for a number of years, as the two occupations we’re engaged in continued on. It took the media a few years to finally grasp what was already known as to the results of War on the soldiers we send. Even with the some four decades of many of us Vietnam Veterans, as well as other Veterans, and the Civilians who recognized those results and have been speaking out about. Like everything else the public either ignored or certainly didn’t want to hear. We didn’t have the present day technology and sadly it’s taking two more long occupations for the realities to finally speak of what happens and reach more and more people who now can’t ignore. The media to finally started reporting on the results of war, not recognized before, as well as the understanding that same happens within the civilian populations, wars are not the only cause. Traumatic Brain Injuries have been known about and treated in the public but even those are being looked at and re-studied, as there is much more now known in needing to understand and bring new treatments for or advance the treatments used.

Civilian Contractors Wounded In Wars

This report is more about the civilian contractors we’ve hired to do the service work for the military in these theaters, not the mercenaries working for the Sate Department for security or now finding out working for the CIA.

The out of theater hires from here in the states and the many brought in from so called third world countries. Also about the in-theater hires like interpreters and other civilian support personal. In the discussion he talks about how the insurance companies are, in many cases, refusing to pay for the needs if these civilians are injured or loose limbs, PTSD etc., i.e. War Profiteering. Many aren’t even informed they can get, by law, disability payments even if not from this country.

Tax Payers have already paid for the insurance yet many of these civilians don’t know they even have it, so Insurance Companies just keep those gains.