DARPA Wants To 'Freeze' Soldiers On The Battlefield

Live Science: Why DARPA Wants to 'Freeze' Soldiers on the Battlefield

When troops are injured on the battlefield, time is of the essence: How long it takes service members to receive medical care is often the single most important factor in determining whether they live or die.

Now, scientists are looking at new ways to buy some extra time for battlefield injuries, but not by getting medical care to troops faster. Instead, the scientists want to essentially slow down time.

And they're taking a cue from tiny creatures called tardigrades.

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WNU Editor: The above video explains why the first 30 minutes are critical for wounded soldiers.

Why Being Shot With An AK-47 Is Better Than Being Shot By An M4

An AK-47, top, and an M4. Wikipedia/Amanda Macias/Business Insider

Business Insider/SOFREP: A former special-operations doctor explains why he would rather be shot with an AK-47 than an M4

Admittedly, I'd rather not be shot with either, but if I had to choose, I'd take a round from the AK-47 over the M4 any day of the week. To add a caveat to that statement, I'm talking from relatively close range here — say up to 150 to 200 meters.

To understand why, it's important to first take a very basic look at the physics behind terminal ballistics.

In this case, consider the science of what happens when a penetrating missile enters a human body.

The first place to start is the following kinetic-energy equation:

WNU Editor: And I always thought that the heavier bullet would cause the most damage.

Update: What Really Happens When You Get Shot (Wired)

US Marine Gives A Raw Account Of Being Shot In Combat

Matt McElhinney holds the rifle round that wounded him in Afghanistan.

'First You Feel The Round Hit' — US Marine Gives A Raw Account Of Being Shot In Combat -- Business Insider

It was during the battle for Marjah, Afghanistan, on March 10, 2010, that US Marine Lance Cpl. Matt McElhinney was shot by a Taliban insurgent just below his body armor.

"I was pretty sure I was going to die," McElhinney told Business Insider.

In a gripping narrative the former infantry machine-gunner with Lima Co., 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, posted to the website Reddit on Wednesday, he explained in gritty detail what went through his mind on that day. Right before it happened, he was trying to hop a gap. "It seemed clear," he writes. "It wasn't."

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WNU Editor: His complete account of being wounded is here.

US Soldier Who Lost All Limbs Undergoes Successful Double-Arm Transplant

Iraq Vet Undergoes Successful Double-Arm Transplant -- CNN

(CNN) -- A U.S. Army infantryman who lost all four limbs in a 2009 roadside explosion in Iraq has undergone radical transplant surgery that may help him regain use of his arms.

Last month, the 26-year-old infantryman had successful surgery -- a rare double arm transplant -- at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

"It feels amazing," Marrocco told reporters Wednesday. "It is something that I was waiting for for a long time, and now that it happened, I don't know what to say, because it is such a big thing for my life."

The last thing Marrocco remembers before being hit by an explosion in 2009 was that he was driving an armored vehicle.

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More News On An Iraq Vet undergoing A Successful Double-Arm Transplant

Johns Hopkins Hospital performs double arm transplant on Army soldier -- Washington Post
Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant -- AP
US soldier who lost all limbs gets new arms -- BBC
Quadruple amputee vet says new arms feel "amazing" -- CBS
Double-arm transplant soldier 'getting a second chance' -- NBC
Soldier with new arms determined to be independent -- Wall Street Journal
Transplant patient says new arms feel like his own -- Washington Post
Former US soldier Brendan Marrocco gets double arm transplant -- The Australian

My Comment: It is amazing on what science is capable of doing right now.

True Grit

Triple Amputee Veteran Completes Grueling 10.5 Mile Endurance Race Called The Beast Over Five-Hours To Honor Fallen U.S. Soldiers -- Daily Mail

* Completed the circuit with 75 obstacles over the weekend
* As part of an eight man team raising awareness for injured and deceased U.S. servicemen and women

Covered in mud, five hours after starting, triple amputee Corporal Todd Love charges to the finish line after competing over ten miles of rugged terrain across 75 obstacles in an event called The Beast.

Having lost both his legs and an arm in Afghanistan in 2010, this weekend Love took to Leesburg, Virginia, in an extreme endurance test called The Spartan Race with his eight-man other comrades of Team X.T.R.E.M.E.

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My Comment: I am in awe.

Progress of Sgt. Travis Mills: How Is Quadruple Amputee Soldier Doing?

My Comment: Words escape me.

Is Caring For The US Military's Traumatized Soldiers Broken?

Some 20 percent of US troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some experts in the field say that they are not getting the kind of psychological care they need when in the war zone. Here, US Marines carry a wounded comrade to a medevac helicopter in Afghanistan last December. AFP

Caring For The US Military's Traumatized Soldiers -- Spiegel Online

Once again, disturbing images from Afghanistan -- this time showing US soldiers posing with body parts of slain enemy fighters -- have surfaced. Are the perpetrators psychologically ill or has there been an increase in the number of violence-prone recruits finding their way into the American military?

Janice Haaken specializes in people with mental challenges. She's studied them at hospitals, in refugee camps and in prisons. A professor at Portland State University in Oregon, she has carried out research for 35 years on ways for therapists to help the mentally ill.

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My Comment: A disturbing report .... read it all.

Treating Battlefield Brain Injuries Now A Priority For The Military

Traumatic brain injuries are most often caused by powerful blasts from improvised explosive devices. A roadside bomb explodes and the concussive effect violently shakes the brain inside the skull. Stefano Rellandini/Reuters /Landov

Army Moves To Act Fast On Battlefield Brain Injuries -- NPR

Nineteen-year-old Army Pvt. Cody Dollman has a look in his eyes that makes you think he probably used to fight much bigger kids on the playground back home in Wichita, Kan. He says he always wanted to be a soldier — both his grandfathers served in the military — but he's the first in his family to see action overseas.

"I love it. It's what I signed up to do, you know?" says Dollman, who had been patrolling the battle-scared villages around Kandahar, Afghanistan. "I get to go back home and tell stories. That's one of the coolest things. What did you do on Christmas? I got blown up."

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My Comment: I have been posting stories for the past few years on traumatic brain injuries, but even I am amazed on how far we have progressed in identifying and treating soldiers with such injuries.

From A Decade Of War, An Endless Struggle For The Severely Wounded

Beyond The Battlefield: From A Decade Of War, An Endless Struggle For The Severely Wounded -- David Wood, Huffington Post

July 4, 2010, was a bad day for Tyler Southern. He dreamed he was with his older brothers, playing sandlot football, running and laughing, horsing around just like they used to when they were together as kids in Jacksonville, Fla.

In his dream, he was whole again.

Then he awoke in his hospital bed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and reality came flooding back. Both of his legs and his right arm were gone, blown off in Afghanistan two months earlier by an improvised explosive device so powerful that only bits of his legs and boots were ever found. The explosion left one remaining limb, his left arm, broken and mangled.

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My Comment: Stories like this one makes me realize that one should not bitch about the troubles in our lives .... others have it much worse.

Brain Trauma Or Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries Will Be Felt For Decades

Image DOD

Invisible Injuries Of War To Be Felt For Decades -- Stars and Stripes

Sixty-six percent of the most seriously wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have “invisible” injuries of brain trauma or post-traumatic stress, which their families and society will be dealing with at great cost for decades, said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff.

“The truth is, because we don’t see these injuries…they don’t receive the same level of attention as amputations, burns, shrapnel injuries,” Chiarelli said. “There is simply a bias – and I really mean that -- there is a bias either conscious or subconscious toward invisible wounds and injuries…It exists everywhere including in the medical community.”

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My Comment: I completely concur. My father and his World War II buddies suffered with these injuries until they past away. Bottom line .... severe brain trauma and injuries last forever, and we should be prepared for that.

Taking Care Of Our Injured Vets

"The biggest loss is the loss of the man I married," April Marcum said, describing her husband now as disconnected on the best days, violent on the worst ones. Sarah Beth Glicksteen for The New York Times

Looking After The Soldier, Back Home and Damaged -- New York Times

RAY CITY, Ga. — April and Tom Marcum were high school sweethearts who married after graduation. For years, she recalls, he was a doting husband who would leave love notes for her to discover on the computer or in her purse. Now the closest thing to notes that they exchange are the reminders she set up on his cellphone that direct him to take his medicine four times a day.

He usually ignores them, and she ends up having to make him do it.

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My Comment: This story reminds me of my father. He suffered a debilitating stroke that did not only paralyzed him, but it also altered his personality and behavior (he became violent until the last year of his life). Even though he was institutionalized, for seven and a half years my mother and I had to watch over him and try our best to make his life as comfortable as possible. When he finally past away, the first thing that I said to my mother was that her duty to her husband was now been completed .... she was now free. Not surprising .... she agreed.

This is what April and Tom Marcum are now going through .... and trust me .... my heart goes out to them and to the thousands of families who must now take care of their loved ones.

What Worries US Marines The Most In Afghanistan

US Troops Who Patrol Afghan Combat Zones Reconcile Themselves To Risk Of Losing Legs, And More -- Washington Post/AP

FORWARD OPERATING BASE JACKSON, Afghanistan — It is a conversation, the military surgeon says, that every U.S. Marine has with his corpsman, the buddy who is first to treat him if he is wounded by an insurgent’s bomb.

The Marine says, “’If I lose my manhood, then I don’t want to live through it,’” according to Navy Lt. Richard Whitehead, surgeon for 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which is fighting in one of the most treacherous combat areas of Afghanistan.

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My Comment: The bigger concern should be this.

The Nightmarish Choice That Some Of Our Severely Wounded Vets Must Make

Photo: Sgt. Chris Champion was wounded when a mine exploded, blowing off his lower left leg. Champion, with Company C, 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Carson, Colo., was patrolling in Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley. Michael Abrams/Stars and Stripes

Some Soldiers Prefer Amputations To Damaged Limbs -- USA Today

WASHINGTON — Army 1st Sgt. William "Mike" Leonard found himself mourning the left leg that he had agonized for months about keeping. It was in December, just weeks before he would have doctors cut it off.

"There were a couple of nights," the company sergeant recalls, "where I sat in the shower and just kind of had some tears about losing it."

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Update: Some soldiers prefer amputations rather than damaged limbs -- Stars And Stripes

My Comment: I cannot even imagine what these soldiers must go through. My father who fought in World War II told me once that being severely injured (not killed) was his biggest fear during the war. That if he was to lose his limbs or sight .... death (for him) was preferable than living. Fortunately for me .... that did not happen to him (but he was wounded on a number of occasions), but I could tell by the tone in his voice that being severely wounded .... that was his nightmare. For soldiers like Army 1st Sgt. William "Mike" Leonard (and so many others) .... they are living that nightmare.

Like Father, Like Son

War Wounded: Father, Son Suffer Brain Injuries -- Washington Post/AP

MOORPARK, Calif. -- The crisply ironed uniforms of the father and son hang side by side in what they have dubbed the "Marine Corps closet," a dark space filled with vestiges of their tours of duty.

Two Purple Hearts. A backpack full of medical records.

The father is David R. Franco; the son is David W. Aside from the name, they share so much: proud service in Iraq, and a haunting, painful aftermath.

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My Comment: A disturbing look at how war injuries impact families when their love ones return home.

Are Injured National Guard And Reserve Soldiers Treated Differently Than Enlisted Soldiers

Injured Soldiers Claim Military Bias -- FOX News

The U.S. Army is expected to release a report any day that will examine whether national guard and reserve soldiers are treated differently than enlisted soldiers when they return from combat.

An investigation was launched last summer after a unit from the Oregon National Guard demobilized at Fort Lewis in May. Soldiers complained about being rushed through the process and were told to "suck it up" and leave the base. An officer even created a Power Point presentation that described them as "weekend warriors" in baseball caps.

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My Comment: My prediction .... the U.S. Army report will confirm that there is a double standard when it comes to treating soldiers.

The Pentagon Still Refuses To Acknowledge The Impact That Brain Injuries Have On Some Of Our Injured Soldiers

Sarah Wade, 36, and her husband, Ted Wade, 33, of Chapel Hill, N.C., often travel to Washington, D.C. for his medical care after he was injured while riding in a Humvee in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, on Feb. 14, 2004, and suffered a traumatic brain injury, as well as an above-the-elbow amputation of his right arm. Sarah has also been actively lobbying to get the right kind of care for her husband. Coburn Dukehart/NPR

Pentagon Plan Won't Cover Brain-Damage Therapy -- NPR

During the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly persuaded that people who suffer brain injuries benefit from what is called cognitive rehabilitation therapy — a lengthy, painstaking process in which patients relearn basic life tasks such as counting, cooking or remembering directions to get home.

Many neurologists, several major insurance companies and even some medical facilities run by the Pentagon agree that the therapy can help people whose functioning has been diminished by blows to the head.

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My Comment: I scream with frustration when I read stories like this one .... and I know that it pails in comparison with what families like the Wades must go through every day. This is a revealing report on how we have failed many of our veterans .... read it all.

The Struggles Of Our Vets Who Have TBI

Traumatic Brain Injury Leaves An Often-Invisible, Life-Altering Wound -- Washington Post

The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon's table, doesn't seem to mind.

Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it's Thursday, that it's June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: "It's 2010." He knows that his wife is Brittanie, that she's due with their first child any day now, and that they "got married two to three weeks before I went to that country."

Stumble No. 2: "That country."

David Williamson doesn't let it slide. "Which country?"

"Whatever country it was that I got blown up in," Warren says.

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My Comment: I feel for the families who must go through this experience. My father had a stroke at 75, and for 8 years he was disabled with brain damage that was too severe for any hope of proper recovery. But at 75 .... we accepted that he had lived his life and that our priority was to take care of him so that the remainder of his years would be comfortable.

But for a young family that must confront and comfort a loved one with such severe injuries .... words escape me because I know the commitment and sacrifice that is needed to live such a life.
Kidos to the Washington Post for doing this comprehensive story, and putting a spotlight on the struggles that our wounded vets must confront with everyday.

Do Soldiers Who Receive A Concussion In Combat Deserve A Purple Heart?

Purple Hearts Elusive For Traumatic Brain Injuries -- NPR

The U.S. Army honors soldiers wounded or killed in combat with the Purple Heart, a powerful symbol designed to recognize their sacrifice and service.

Yet Army commanders have routinely denied Purple Hearts to soldiers who have sustained concussions in Iraq, despite regulations that make such wounds eligible for the medal, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.

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My Comment: In my book, severe concussions fall under the category of severe combat injury .... and yes .... these wounded soldiers deserve the Purple Heart.

I Guess Injured Vets Are Not A Priority For Washington

Photo: Sens. John McCain & Hillary Clinton, Intrepid Museum Foundation Chairman Arnold Fisher, Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace and VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, Honor the Troops

Vet Snub Shocks Families -- The Daily Beast

America’s top officials were notably absent at the launch of a new veterans' center to care for brain-damaged soldiers. Leslie H. Gelb talks to its chief fundraiser, Arnold Fisher, about our duty to troops with war’s mental wounds.

It was inauguration day for the nation’s most modern facility for the treatment of active-duty soldiers and veterans suffering from brain injuries and psychological disorders—5,000 of them with families on hand. At the podium in Bethesda, Maryland, stood Arnold Fisher, the chief fundraiser for this precious center that may need to care for hundreds of thousands of victims, searching in vain for one White House official, one Cabinet officer, one member of the Joint Chiefs, one senator. He found none. And he asked again and again, “Where are they?”

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My Comment: Another example of the Beltway being completely out of touch (and insensitive) with mainstream America.

Afghan IEDs Are Impacting Our Troops

The roadside bombs of Afghanistan are brutal and destructive, though the injuries they cause, both in brain and body, can be subtle. Photograph by: File, CNS

Brain Injuries Emerging As Concern Due To Roadside Bombings In Afghanistan -- Vancouver Sun

The roadside bombs of Afghanistan are brutal and destructive, though the injuries they cause, both in brain and body, can be subtle.

Since 2003, the Taliban's consistent use of such explosives has killed 84 of Canada's 142 fallen soldiers, and has made amputees of many others. Often, the bombs tear apart soldiers and local Afghans alike. They have been known to lift 70-tonne tanks off the ground.

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My Comment: For an analysis on what may be the long term impact of brain injuries due to IEDs, go to this link.