DOD Identifies Army Casualty

DOD Identifies Army Casualty


The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. Robert K. Charlton, 22, of Malden, Mo.,

died Oct. 27 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident Oct. 23 in Wardak, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

The circumstances surrounding the non-combat related incident are under investigation.

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13088

DOD Identifies Army Casualty


The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Spc. Joseph L. Gallegos, 39, of Questa, N.M.,

died Oct. 28 in Tallil, Iraq, in a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 720th Transportation Company, New Mexico Army National Guard, in Las Vegas, N.M.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=13089

Wounded warriors get heros' welcome at Andrews

Wounded warriors get heros' welcome at Andrews

Posted 10/2/2009

by Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

10/2/2009 - ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. (AFNS) -- Minutes after the hulking C-17 Globemaster III rolled to a stop on the tarmac here Sept. 28, two oversized ambulances backed up to its rear loading ramp to receive its precious cargo: 23 wounded warriors and sick or injured servicemembers in need of advanced medical care.

Most of the patients arrived from Iraq and Afghanistan after being stabilized at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Several had serious combat injuries. A soldier who had been in a helicopter crash in Iraq was headed to the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda for specialized care for his head and other injuries. Another, suffering serious musculoskeletal injuries from a mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle accident outside his forward operating base in Afghanistan, was en route to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for treatment.

Another patient, severely wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Afghanistan, remained on the aircraft to be flown directly to the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
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http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123170970

Convicted GI poisoned himself before surrendering

Father: Convicted GI poisoned himself before surrendering
By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes
Online Edition, Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A Special Forces soldier who was on the run for nearly two days following a court-martial conviction poisoned himself before surrendering to police, his father told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday.

Kelly A. Stewart — a sergeant first class at the time of his conviction last week on charges of kidnapping, forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual assault of a German woman in August 2008 — is now in intensive care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, according to his father, John.

Stewart, 36, fled early Thursday morning after being convicted the night before at his court-martial in Vilseck, Germany. He surrendered late Friday to military police in Stuttgart and was taken to the Army confinement facility at Coleman Barracks in Mannheim. It was at the confinement facility where Stewart showed the first signs of illness, his father said in a telephone interview Tuesday morning.

Stewart, a medic by training, may have injected himself with poison or swallowed pills while he was fleeing authorities, his father said.

He was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center on Sunday and then flown to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., on Monday afternoon, medical officials said. Patient privacy rules prevent medical officials from discussing patient treatment and conditions.

“He may or may not live,” said John Stewart, who said he was heading to an airport to board a plane from Nebraska to be at his son’s bedside. “He is in the ICU (intensive care unit) and there appears to be some major organ damage, particularly to his kidneys.”
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64383

New PTSD Program Answers Need

New PTSD Program Answers Need
July 21, 2009
Army News Serviceby Capt. Bryan Lewis

LANDSTUHL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER, Germany - Symptoms of combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder include continual nightmares, avoidance behaviors, denial, grief, anger and fear.

Some Soldiers, battling these and other symptoms, can be treated successfully as an outpatient while assuming their normal duties. For others, however, returning to work and becoming their old selves again were challenges recognized by several mental health professionals across the European theater.

"We were looking at how we can best meet the needs of our clientele, and we were identifying that a lot of the Soldiers needed more than once-a-week outpatient, individual therapy and probably needed more than once- or twice-a-week group therapy," said Joseph Pehm, chief of Medical Social Work at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

The solution came in the creation of an intensive eight-week therapeutic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Day Treatment Program called "evolution" that began in March 2009 at LRMC. During the eight-hour days, patients enrolled in the program participate in multiple disciplines and interests, including art therapy, yoga and meditation classes, substance abuse groups, anger and grief management, tobacco cessation, pain management and multiple PTSD evidence-based practice protocols.
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New PTSD Program Answers Need

Cpl. Matthew Lembke died of wounds received in Afghanistan

Marine Matthew Lembke of Tualatin dies of injuries suffered in Afghanistan
by Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian
Friday July 10, 2009, 5:04 PM

Cpl. Matthew Lembke, a Tualatin man serving his third combat tour, died Friday at Bethesda Naval Hospital from complications from his blast injuries suffered in Afghanistan.

The 22-year-old Marine sniper had been patrolling on foot June 22 when an IED exploded. He lost both his legs and sustained internal injuries.


He was flown to the U.S. Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany where his parents, Claudia and Dale, and sister Carolyn, joined him. Last weekend, he was flown to Bethesda in Maryland where he underwent several surgeries.

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Marine Matthew Lembke of Tualatin dies of injuries suffered in Afghanistan

PTSD program answers need for comprehensive treatment

A couple of points that should be paid attention to here;
The first one that struck me is that they are paying attention to the fact nothing works for all of them the same way, so they have a variety of programs going on.
They are keeping the groups small, and this also helps them to feel connected instead of being lumped into such a large group, they would feel lost.
They are using EMDR and yoga, two of the latest programs being used.

To me, this is all good even though it's early on in this program. It seems they are doing everything right and should be seriously considered.

New PTSD program answers need for comprehensive treatment

by Capt. Bryan Lewis
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Public Affairs

7/1/2009 - LANDSTUHL REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER, Germany (AFNS) -- Symptoms of combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder for wounded warriors include continual nightmares, avoidance behaviors, denial, grief, anger and fear.

Some servicemembers battling these and other symptoms, can be treated successfully as an outpatient while assuming their normal duties, but for others; however, returning to work and becoming their old selves again were challenges recognized by several mental health professionals across the European theater.

"We were looking at how we can best meet the needs of our clientele, and we were identifying that a lot of the Soldiers needed more than once a week outpatient, individual therapy and probably needed more than once or twice a week group therapy," said Joseph Pehm, the chief of Medical Social Work at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

The solution came in the creation of an intensive eight-week therapeutic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Day Treatment Program called "evolution" that began in March 2009 at LRMC. During the eight-hour days, patients enrolled in the program participate in multiple disciplines and interests, including art therapy, yoga and meditation classes, substance abuse groups, anger and grief management, tobacco cessation, pain management and multiple PTSD evidence-based practice protocols.

"I am a great believer in the kitchen sink, meaning I throw everything, including the kitchen sink, and something will stick," said Dr. Daphne Brown, chief of the Division of Behavioral Health at LRMC. "And so we've come with all the evidence-based treatment for PTSD that we know about. We've taken everything that we can think of that will be of use in redirecting symptoms for these folks and put it into an eight-week program."

Doctor Brown, Mr. Pehm and Sharon Stewart, a Red Cross volunteer who holds a Ph.D. in psychology, said the program is designed from research into the effects of traumatic experience and mirrors successful PTSD programs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as programs run by psychologists in the U.S.

"We are building on the groundbreaking work that some of our peers and colleagues have done and just expanding it out," Doctor Brown said.
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http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123156957

Stryker soldier was injured trying to help others, wife says

Iraq blast caused 'chaotic scene'
Stryker soldier was injured trying to help others, wife says
Saturday, April 18, 2009
BY BARBARA MILLER
Of the Patriot-News
Reed Preece and three other soldiers were on a routine patrol north of Baghdad on Sunday when a blast rocked their Stryker, throwing the 24-year-old first lieutenant off the combat vehicle.

Preece, of Gettysburg, and another officer whose name has not been released by the military hurried to free two soldiers trapped in the front of the burning vehicle, said Preece's wife, Heather.

Her husband's twin brother, Ian, who is also in Iraq with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, managed to call her the morning after the attack at her in-laws' house and tell her what happened.


"The vehicle was engulfed in flames. It was a very chaotic scene," Heather Preece said Ian Preece told her. Her husband injured his knee as he worked with the other officer to free the trapped men.

Pfc. Mitchell Baldwin, 19, of Chambersburg, and Pfc. Brian Miller of Carlisle had more severe injuries and were flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, according to military officials. The patrol was south of Camp Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad along the Tigris River, when it was attacked.
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Iraq blast caused 'chaotic scene'

Landstuhl bolsters staff with volunteers

Landstuhl bolsters staff with volunteers
By Mark Abramson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, October 26, 2008

LANDSTUHL, Germany — A dozen sets of helping hands are on the way, thanks to a new program that trains volunteers to be certified nursing assistants.

Landstuhl Regional Medical Center officials have teamed with the American Red Cross to train the volunteers and place them at medical facilities close to where they live in Europe. They compressed the training into four weeks by having it five days a week.

Last week’s nursing assistant graduates are the first to complete the Red Cross program at a military base, although other military installations have expressed an interest in the program, said Susanne Harlandt, the Red Cross’s station chief at Landstuhl. Harlandt said officials at Fort Carson, Colo., want her to start a similar program when she transfers there next month.

"It’s like a nurse having a second set of hands," said Army nurse 1st Lt. Melanie Silva.

The nursing assistants are trained to take vital signs, handle patients who are in physical therapy, work with patients on dietary needs, feed and move patients around a hospital and perform other tasks that would allow nurses to focus on duties that require more extensive training, such as administering medicine and IVs.

"A CNA is really an integral person at the bedside taking care of a patient," said Army Col. Roy Harris, chief of clinical nursing at Landstuhl.

Training people to be nursing assistants is also is a good way to get them interested in becoming nurses, Harris said.

CNAs and nurses are in demand in the United States. According to the California Association for Nurse Practitioners, the CNA field is expected to grow by 393,000 people, or 14-20 percent between 2006 and 2016.

"There is a real concern throughout the health-care industry that the shortage of nurses and nursing assistants is becoming a national epidemic," Jill Olmstead, the association’s president, said in an e-mail.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58403

Medic's compassion will be tested in Iraq

Medics' compassion will be tested in Iraq
Salt Lake Tribune - United States
Also called secondary traumatic stress disorder, compassion fatigue is often suffered by individuals who work closely with victims of trauma

Medics' compassion will be tested in Iraq
The Utah-based 328th Combat Support Hospital deploys Wednesday
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 09/16/2008 11:42:56 PM MDT


On Wednesday, Sgt. Anil Shandil will deploy to Iraq with the 328th Combat Support Hospital. (Paul Fraughton/The Salt Lake Tribune)Posted: 7:00 PM- In the Intensive Care Unit at a German hospital for service members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Anil Shandil knew the consequences of war in a way few others could.

For two years, Shandil helped care for service members whose limbs had been blown from their bodies, whose faces had been burnt past recognition, whose lives had been forever altered - and sometimes ended.

Now, less than two years after returning from his tour of duty at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center, Shandil is going to Iraq. "And now," he explained, "my job will be to care for the people who did these things to those soldiers."

About 85 soldiers from the Fort Douglas-based 328th Combat Support Hospital - about a third of them Utahns - will depart Wednesday for a tour of duty in which their mission will be to provide medical care for Iraqi detainees being held by the U.S. military in Iraq. The unit will train for about a month in Ft. Lewis, Wash., and is expected in Iraq by November.

Because the new deployment comes on the heels of the Germany tour, the 328th reservists who served at Landstuhl in 2005 and 2006 were given the option to opt out of the Iraq trip. Shandil, a native of Sacramento, Calif., is one of only a handful of soldiers from the 328th who opted in.
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Afghanistan:Poisoned tobacco suspected in soldiers illness

Poisoned tobacco suspected in soldiers' illnesses in Afghanistan
Military in Afghanistan issues safety alert about locally purchased products
By Michael Gisick, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, September 6, 2008



Concern that two U.S. soldiers in Eastern Afghanistan may have been poisoned by locally bought tobacco has prompted at least one U.S. brigade to bar troops from buying cigarettes or dip on the Afghan economy.

The two soldiers became critically ill with similar symptoms over a two-day period in late July, said Lt. Col. Paul A. Fanning, a military spokesman. The soldiers, who had been found unconscious, were placed on life support and evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. They were later transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and remain hospitalized, officials said.

Fanning said an investigation into what caused the Task Force Phoenix soldiers to become sick had not reached a definite conclusion.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57224

Landstuhl Regional Medial Center has treated over 50,000 wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan

Constructing a tower at the hospital has been talked about for at least 20 years. U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment at Landstuhl before flying back to military hospitals in the States. Since 2001, Landstuhl has treated more than 50,000 patients from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Landstuhl to add 5-story inpatient tower
Upgrade will allow hospital to treat troops’ families
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, August 30, 2008


LANDSTUHL, Germany — The largest American hospital outside the United States is set for a $405 million upgrade.

Set for completion in 2014, a five-story tower would house inpatients at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

Landstuhl commander Army Col. Brian Lein received official word Thursday the project had been approved. Construction is slated to begin in fiscal 2011.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57092

Germany: Program helps wounded at Landstuhl get away

Program helps wounded warriors get away
Instead of being stuck in their rooms on a Saturday in the summer, about 40 wounded troops recovering at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center were able to visit a massive castle, see Gen. George Patton’s grave and step inside a World War II German bunker.

Canadian care for wounded:Bringing Our Wounded Home Safely

Improve care for troops: Senate
All Canadian soldiers physically or psychologically wounded in Afghanistan must be guaranteed state-of-the-art, special treatment when they return home from war, a Senate committee urges in a new report. Full Story
Improve care for troops: Senate
Report calls for state-of-the-art medical treatment for Afghan veterans
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, NATIONAL BUREAU CHIEF
The Toronto Sun
OTTAWA -- All Canadian soldiers physically or psychologically wounded in Afghanistan must be guaranteed state-of-the-art, special treatment when they return home from war, a Senate committee urges in a new report.

The study released yesterday by the defence and security committee -- named "Bringing Our Wounded Home Safely" -- calls for standardized "first class" care for all soldiers and equality in compensation and treatment for part-time reservists injured in the line of duty.

"If you don't take care of the wounded, you can't expect people to go to war to protect you," committee chairman Sen. Colin Kenny said in an interview. "We want to recognize that they have done something special for us."

Kenny said the Senate group found impressive care is provided to soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan and hospitals in Kandahar and in Landstuhl, Germany, where U.S.-run hospitals treat wounded Canadians.

But the injured troops receive varying standards for treatment and rehabilitation when they return home to Canada.
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Excuse my language but BattleMind is Bullshit!

If BattleMind worked, there would not be more suicides and more attempted suicides than before BattleMind, but do you think they would be able to figure this one out yet? It came out in 2007 and yet again today I hear word of another soldier, a young, newly married soldier, who came back from Iraq and blew his brains out in front of his new bride. Is it because they do not show it to all the troops? Is it because they only show a lousy 11 1/2 minutes to the troops in Afghanistan as the BBC reported? Is it the trainers? Or, is the answer as simple as it does not work? I don't know but you would think that since some of the finest minds in this country have been put to work on PTSD, they would have reduced suicides and attempted suicides instead of increasing them while they stick their fingers in their ears and hope the problem goes away! If they cannot cope with any of this after all this time, what's it going to be like two or three years from now when most of them have PTSD and they are still doing what does not work? Unit cohesion? Trust? How can they have any when they cannot trust what they are coming back to? How can they when some of them are National Guards and Reservists expected to go back to their civilian lives and jobs?

Army Battlemind training course aims to build unit cohesion, trust
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, August 10, 2008



LANDSTUHL, Germany — Building unit cohesion goes a long way toward lessening combat and operational stress problems downrange, an Army trainer told a class of soldiers and airmen preparing to deploy.

The lesson came during a four-day Army Battlemind training course last week and took place on the heels of three days of Navy-run training on combat operational stress control.

A few dozen soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines participated in the training sessions, and some will soon get the chance to put their newfound knowledge to use.

If the behavioral health specialists attending the Battlemind training at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center were to take something away, it would be to take care of warriors and build unit cohesion, said Mike Hagan of the Battlemind Training Office.

"When the unit is tight and everybody trusts each other, we have found through research they actually have less behavioral health problems, less psychological issues," Hagan said.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56663

Landstuhl says Obama could have media with him, but he didn't want them

Landstuhl clarifies press rules for aborted Obama visit
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, August 1, 2008



LANDSTUHL, Germany Although news outlets have reported charges that Sen. Barack Obama canceled his trip to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because the media weren't allowed to cover the event, U.S. European Command officials say plans were in place to allow limited press coverage.

All media, including local press and the more than 40 journalists accompanying the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on his eight-day international trip last week, would have been able to photograph the Illinois senator entering and leaving the hospital, said Air Force Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a U.S. European Command spokesman.

Defense Department public affairs policy guidance on media coverage of candidates visiting military installations states "under no circumstances may a candidate receive approval to make a campaign or election-related statement or to respond to a campaign or election-related media query."

The guidance also states that "the candidate may appear on camera and in photographs as an official participant and may make a statement or answer questions about the official business being conducted."
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56487

Aside from McCain having two scripts ready to attack Obama no matter what he decided to do, McCain decided to not tell the truth about any of this and that's a real shame. The shame does not belong to Obama, who did't want the media with him even though he could have them there, but McCain decided to use the wounded troops no matter what happened. Sickening!

Someone tell McCain wounded troops are not fair game

The following is very good and goes a long way in showing that the troops should never be used in anyone's campaign, especially wounded ones. Obama has never allowed reporters to cover his trips to see the wounded and as far as this trip goes, reporters were never under the impression they would be going to Landstuhl this time either. It was to be a private visit but even at that, the retired General he was taking was told that his visit would appear to be political. It made Obama aware that his visit would be seen that way as well.

What McCain managed to do was use wounded troops in Landstuhl as part of a political game. Not just in the lie created in his commercial, but by also saying that McCain has been any kind of a champion of wounded troops or veterans. His record shows how little he manages to support them when it counts.

The biggest indication of this is the fact the DAV has given McCain such a deplorable grade on veterans issues. Keep in mind that while the DAV as an organization stays away from taking political sides, the majority of people in the DAV are Republicans. They put wounded and disabled veterans ahead of any kind of politics and proved it when they ranked McCain at 20%. Most of the highest ranks from the DAV have gone to Democrats simply because it is not the majority of Republicans supporting the veterans when it counts, but it is the Democrats.

If Obama had used his trips to Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital as a political stunt, I would have come out against using the troops. If McCain ever does manage to support the wounded, it would go a long way to proving what he says. Someone really should tell him that the troops, the wounded and the disabled veterans are not tools he can use in a political game. Obama has to run on his record and what he does. McCain has to run on his record and what he does but especially because McCain is a wounded veteran, what he fails to do carries a lot more ramifications.

Fact Check: No evidence that Obama troop visit was to be media event

10:10 AM CDT on Thursday, July 31, 2008
By Robert Farley / PolitiFact.com

A John McCain campaign ad claims that Barack Obama "made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras." Mr. Obama's campaign denies the Democrat ever planned to take reporters with him, and The Washington Post reported Wednesday that there was no evidence that media would be invited. Some background:

In an effort to shore up his foreign policy chops, Mr. Obama took the unusual step of making a trip overseas — to the Middle East and Europe. The idea, in part, was to show the presidential candidate's gravitas as an international leader.

But the strategy backfired a bit when Mr. Obama canceled plans to visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany.

Mr. Obama had been part of a congressional delegation that visited Iraq and Afghanistan, but when that trip ended Mr. Obama stayed on the road, spending several days on a campaign-funded tour of Europe. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, was supposed to be one of the stops.

The decision to cancel was made after the Pentagon raised a number of issues about its policy against campaign activity at a military base — including visits by campaign staff or any media coverage or speeches. As a sitting senator, Mr. Obama was welcome to visit troops, but no one on the campaign trip with him, including a retired general who is advising his campaign, could go along.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/
politics/national/stories/073108dnpolfactcheck.1a2b2fec.html

Delayed TBI diagnoses inspire a mission

Delayed TBI diagnoses inspire a mission

By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Thursday Jul 24, 2008 9:05:11 EDT

LANDSTUHL, Germany — It took nearly three years for the Army to understand the damage to Army Sgt. Chad Joiner’s brain after a roadside explosion left him unconscious in a Humvee on June 28, 2005.

He finished his tour and returned home, struggled with headaches and memory loss, went back to Iraq and survived another bombing in February that aggravated his symptoms.

Only after arriving here at the Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center with an ankle injury in February did a new and aggressive screening program finally identify Joiner’s brain injury and lead to treatment.

“I’m just in shock that somebody is figuring out what’s wrong with me,” said Joiner, 26, adding that his gratitude for the treatment outweighs any bitterness over the delay in diagnosing his injury.

The Pentagon debated for years whether to systematically screen troops for brain injuries such as Joiner’s. A recent study by Rand Corp., a research group, said such injuries could have affected 320,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Uncertain how aggressively to identify a wound that is still largely a mystery, the Pentagon initially resisted calls to screen all service members coming off the battlefield. Under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon in March ordered all military branches to screen for traumatic brain injury.

By then, doctors at this key Army hospital — through which all war casualties pass on their way home — already had begun to check each of the wounded for a brain injury in an effort that could set new standards for whether such troops ever return to duty.

“One of the things we’ve learned here at Landstuhl is you have to be actively looking for this to find it,” said Col. Stephen Flaherty, who oversees the TBI screening process here.

If there is the slightest indication that a service member is suffering TBI, he or she is almost certain to be kept from returning to combat. During the past six months, only two out of several hundred troops diagnosed with mild TBI have been allowed to return to the war, doctors here said.

The aggressive monitoring developed in Landstuhl could produce valuable information about how best to spot and treat brain injuries, the doctors said.

“If I have a hint of a whiff of a suspicion — no matter how vehemently you want to go back downrange [to Iraq] — that you will be compromised, then I’ve got to be the black hat and say, ‘No, you’re not going back,’” said Maj. Shawna Scully, a neurologist who directs TBI recovery. “I’m sure there are some commanders downrange who are furious with me because I didn’t take X soldier and send them back.”

Before the aggressive screening for brain injuries here, doctors at only a few military sites — most notably, Fort Carson, Colo. — and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals screened for TBI.

However, a debate is growing within military medicine about mild TBI and aggressive screening efforts.

Army Col. Charles Hoge, a psychiatrist and epidemiologist who has conducted landmark research on post-traumatic stress disorder, published a controversial study in the New England Journal of Medicine this year, arguing that the screening can lead to misdiagnosis. He argued that any lingering symptoms are often the result of PTSD.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/gns_tbi_072408/

Soldier recounts attack following Iraq meeting

Soldier recounts attack following Iraq meeting
By Steve Mraz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, July 12, 2008

LANDSTUHL, Germany — Pfc. Derraivius Strawder remembers having a lot of anger, a lot of rage.

Those were his emotions around noon on June 23 when a former Iraqi council member leveled an AK-47 and unexpectedly opened fire on U.S. soldiers as they left a meeting in Salman Pak, Iraq.

"I heard the first shots," Strawder said Thursday while recovering at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. "I was about to turn, and then my legs went out from under me."

The Iraqi shot Strawder in the left calf and right thigh following a council meeting with local leaders.

The gunman sprayed AK-47 rounds at Strawder and fellow Baumholder soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment as the soldiers made their way toward their vehicles.

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Sgt. Nicholas A. Robertson died of wounds from Afghanistan

Injured Bragg soldier dies a day later
FayObserver.com - Fayetteville,NC,USA


A staff report



Robertson
A Fort Bragg soldier died Thursday in Germany from wounds he sustained during combat in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Nicholas A. Robertson, 27, was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center after he was injured in the Zahn Khan District, Ghazni Province in Afghanistan on Wednesday.

He was a cryptologic linguist with the Headquarters Service Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group. He was serving as a Special Operations assistant team sergeant when he died.

This was his second deployment to Afghanistan.

Robertson enlisted in May 2005 in Portland, Maine, after graduating from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

He is survived by his parents, David and Nancy, who live in Venice, Fla., and two brothers, Doug and Todd.

Non-combat deaths of USS Fort McHenry Sailors

Officials won’t release details into sailors’ deaths
Navy officials still decline to release the cause of death of two USS Fort McHenry sailors whose bodies were found in a Ghanaian hotel more than a month ago.

Officials have yet to complete the investigation, said Lt. Cmdr. Herb Josey, a spokesman for Naval Surface Force Atlantic in Norfolk, Va. Autopsies were done Jan. 5 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Officials also are awaiting toxicology results.

The bodies of Seaman Lonnie Davis Jr., 35, of Riverdale, Ga., and Petty Officer 1st Class Patrick Mack, 22, of Warren, Mich., were found New Year’s Day by a fellow sailor at La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra, the capital of Ghana. A third sailor with them was ill and taken to a local hospital, a Navy official said. The sailor has since returned to duty.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59689&archive=true