Re: word from Iraq

You are correct Cathy, thanks for clarifying that for everyone else.  Under 
normal conditions many of these soldiers would be in hospital beds,  it is no 
different than any other combat situation....although I doubt that anyone would 
have ever thought that this brand new state of the art hospital consisting of 
4 buildings, a total of 15 stories, 16 operating rooms, etc. would ever be 
filled to capacity.  They have on average 200 soldiers a month being brought 
into the hospital from overseas.  And this is only this one hospital.
Although granted, not unlike Vietnam, I doubt very many thought that this 
would happen......or know it is happening.  That was actually my point.

Noreen
zone 9
Texas Gulf Coast
In a message dated 2/2/2004 11:02:49 AM Central Standard Time, 
gardenchat-owner@hort.net writes:
While I have no doubt that there are many who have been badly wounded 
(including the son of a friend of mine), the situation you describe 
here is related to the way the military categorizes their personnel. A 
soldier is either "on duty", "on leave", or "AWOL". Each of these 
categories may be further defined. They may be on duty at work, on 
quarters (home sick), or essentially "assigned" to the hospital. A 
soldier who has been sick or wounded may not be returned to duty with 
their unit until they are fully capable of performing their 
responsibilities. Therefore, when they no longer need to be actually in 
a hospital, but are not able to be sent back to their units they must 
be housed somewhere until cleared by their doctor for full duty...hence 
the barracks and hotel. I remember back during Vietnam we had entire 
wards full of convalescent soldiers, and they were quite a handful for 
the nursing staff, who became more parents than  nurses!
Cathy

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Support hort.net -- join the hort.net fund drive!
http://www.hort.net/funds/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index