The soldier wakes at 6 a.m. after getting only three or four hours of sleep. He showers, shaves, and puts on his uniform by 7 a.m., even as his head pounds from a traumatic brain injury. Sometimes, while walking to a mandatory daily roll call, the piece of shrapnel still lodged in his back catches […]
Healthcare
Posted inNewsroom
Their Military Careers Were Cut Short in Combat. Now They’re Fighting Congress for Their Full Benefits
The fall lasted only seconds, but the consequences would span a lifetime. Under the cover of darkness in Balad, Iraq, Army Sgt. Will Fisher was moving into position for an overnight mission. He fell roughly 40 feet and landed on his feet while wearing about 100 pounds of gear. The force of the fall crushed […]
Posted inReflections
Everybody Wanted to Visit the Wounded Soldier. I Wanted to Be Left Alone
It was only a month after the roadside bombing. I was still in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, in June 2006, undergoing successive rounds of surgery. Rods protruded from my limbs, keeping the broken bones of my right forearm and left thigh immobile until the doctors could complete a series of bone grafts and insert […]
Posted inNewsroom
Shrapnel, Broken Bones, and Head Trauma: New Records Show How U.S. Troops Were Wounded in Iran War
The United States recorded at least 17 life-threatening casualties during the first phase of the war with Iran, according to newly obtained Defense Department records that provide the most detailed accounting yet of troops wounded in the conflict. More than 400 casualties were recorded between Feb. 28 and April 8, with Army personnel accounting for […]
Posted inNewsroom
Trump Promised Redemption for Troops Who Refused Covid Shots. A Year Later, Many Are Still Waiting
When the COVID-19 vaccine was released in 2020, Daniel Pendergast was intrigued. “I honestly thought it sounded kind of ingenious at first,” he said. But then he learned there was a very small chance of heart inflammation that could occur after vaccination in healthy men like himself: around eight cases per million, according to the […]
Posted inNewsroom
Veterans With Gulf War Illness Were Finally Seeing Progress. Then Congress Cut Funding
It’s easy for Ron Brown to remember when his health problems first began. It was early March 1991, and Brown’s Army unit was in Khamisiyah, where Iraqi forces had been storing chemical weapons in a bunker and an excavated area known as “the pit.” As U.S. forces demolished the bunker and the weapons in the […]
Posted inNewsroom
Hiring, Overtime, and AI: VA Is Processing Veterans’ Disability Claims Faster Than Ever
Not too many Vietnam veterans are using ChatGPT. “I may be a little more technical than other 80-year-olds,” said Chip, a Marine Corps Vietnam vet and former software developer who used artificial intelligence last year for help filing a disability claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Chip plugged his symptoms for Agent Orange-related cancer […]
Posted inNewsroom
‘Got to Get Fixed:’ Billing Delays, Coverage Issues Still Plague Tricare Patients and Providers
Nearly every day for months, Lorelei Evans, a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, received a call or text from a doctor’s office trying to collect on some of her family’s $86,000 in unpaid medical bills. Almost weekly, she said, a bill showed up in the mail at her home in San Antonio, Texas. Some […]
Posted inNewsroom
Drone Warfare Has Dramatically Changed the Battlefield. Is the US Medical Corps Ready?
On a serene Saturday afternoon, thousands of miles from conflict, soldiers with the California Air National Guard are scattered among stations, hunched over a buddy. Some apply tourniquets. Others practice life-saving skills, checking for breathing, tilting chins to clear airways, searching for blood loss and hidden wounds. This is how they learn to keep a […]
Posted inReflections
We Were Winning in the Middle East. But the Civilian Casualties Kept Coming
I watched our medics and nurses work on a small child, one of several who arrived at our makeshift forward surgical unit in northeast Syria. We had been running traumas for eight months, and the team knew what they were doing. I could see that the child had a clear airway, his color looked good, […]
Posted inNewsroom
‘I Felt Like a Factory Worker.’ Why VA Psychologists Are Burning Out
Each year, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ internal watchdog sends a survey to all 139 of the agency’s medical centers coast to coast with a straightforward question: Which jobs have severe staffing shortages? In fiscal year 2025, the responses raised alarm: VA health care facilities reported more than 4,400 severe staffing shortages—a 50% hike from […]
Posted inReflections
I Carried Death’s Shroud With Me From Afghanistan. But I Do Not Fear It
Death first appeared in my life when I yelled, “Take cover!” Sirens wailing in the distance, flak vest slipping off my shoulder, I ran for the nearest bunker in the darkness. Barely 18 hours in-country. I hadn’t fully unpacked, butI knew the location of every bullet in my magazine, felt them digging into my chest. […]
