A lesson in dignity
Posted by Raven on January 18th, 2006
I’ve been meaning to write about this for months now and haven’t really had an inspiration for it. Until the other day. My daughter had been in a major medical center recently, one where some wounded US Marines are at as well…they are at this center for post surgeries and acute rehab care. At my work in the Adult Brain Injury Unit we have a couple wounded soldiers needing care as well. With all the well meaning folks of this great world who want to “do something” for these soldiers, let it be said- don’t go overboard with the self fondling bullshit that I have seen and which embarrasses the hell out of these warriors.
I got the first hint of this issue at work a few weeks back. Some local women had collected money and purchased some materials for the wounded soldiers’ wheelchairs- special battery packs for the power source. It was a great thing they did and the batteries are expensive. The soldiers in question are what we call TBI- traumatic brain injury- which generally means they have pretty signifigant memory problems, physical problems and stuff like that. Some can talk, some cannot; some appear to be alert and others are in coma. One has lost both legs, the other lost an arm.
The women came onto the unit, as guests of one of the big whigs who wanted to use this as a PR gimmick. The women had cameras and notepads…one was taking notes…One lady gasped as she stared at the amputated leg. Another stood there and absent-mindedly mimicked wiping drool off her own chin as the soldier she was looking did so…The worst of it all came from the so called leader of this women’s group, who commented about a urinary leg bag being full and mentioned all the tubing coming out from the solider she was staring at. She meant well, I think, but to ask stupid questions about medical issues and the mental/physical condition of the wounded was not very classy. This same lady said something about blogging about all this…
It really upset the soldiers. They knew their wounds were being gawked at, they knew these women were expecting a big fat THANK YOU. It was very awkward for the guys, to be put up on display like this. It was obvious that these women were standing around, waiting for something- a hug, a thank you, some sort of acknowledgment of their kindness…they didn’t realize how their very presence was so belittling to the wounded.
I was pissed off at the PR aspects of this and I took control of the situation. I escorted the women off the unit-and I wasn’t very nice about it (LOL am I ever?), along with the VP who sort of arranged all this. Of course he threatened me with being written up and all that crap…to which I reminded him, the patients safety and well being comes before his need for publicity. He promptly shut the hell up. The President of my facility thanked me for doing the right thing and wrote up the VP for allowing such a situation to occur in the first place.
Once the women left, one of the soldiers let out a big sigh of relief. He looked at me, and used his communication board to spell out, very slowly:
SHE embarrassed ME. DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.
And I won’t. I promised him.
The science of healing, recovering, from severe injuries is a private matter. Those who have been wounded need time, space, respect, privacy as well as the nursing care. The pressure of having pain, memory problems, extreme disablity is bad enough to deal with. The emotional turmoil of these soldiers is ever present. They don’t need people they don’t know showing up, while they are in the process of this recovery. to gawk and gasp and google over them. It’s a matter of dignity.
A word to those who plan to do these things:
DON’T. DEMAND. ANYTHING.
DON’T EXPECT A THANK YOU right away.
DON’T STARE. And DON’T speak about wounds, tubes, machines. Watch your body language.
Know that your very presence might be embarrassing for the soldiers.
Wait until the healing has ended or is at it’s later stages.
Educate yourself just a little about the conditions you might encounter when such a visit is planned.
Have some class.
Remember. Dignity.
January 18th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Well said.
January 18th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
Thank you for taking control of the situation.
Also, if you send care packages to the troops in Iraq/Afghanistan…do NOT expect a letter of thanks. There is very little time for letter writing and what time there is goes to family.
We need to do for these men/women with no thought of what is in it for us except the self satisfaction.
Proud Mom of 3 Veterans
January 18th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Thank you for doing the right thing. It is completely egregious that ANYONE would use our soldiers for publicity, especially someone in the military. They ought to know better. Shame on them!
January 18th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Yes. Well…
People seem to have interesting reactions when confronted with the reality of war, as opposed to the abstract idea…
January 18th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I can tell you from experience timmahthetard, that the last thing one wishes to have while lying in a hospital recovering from serious issues is people one doesn’t know gawking at you.
January 18th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Kender- What the fuck?
I’m not even disagreeing with anything in the post. Why are you calling me a tard?
You know what, nevermind, it’s pretty obvious from dealing with Seth that petty, barely coherent insults are the norm, and are quickly employed, even in a post with subject matter that’s supposed to be as sobering as this one. It’s pathetic really.
January 18th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Timmah, given your constant adversarial role on this site some leeway is to be given if you have posted something that is not meant to be adversarial…..but your comment could be taken either way.
It seems you are saying that the realities of war are a bad thing, and people’s reactions may be surprising.
People’s reactions to battle wounds are only shocking when those people who are confronted by them have not prepared themselves for the realities of those wounds.
Take those in the “reality based community”…..thye scream about the horrors of war, and then gawk like fear-struck children when actually confronted with missing limbs are people scarred from burns.
Thowe of us that understand the horrors of war, and realize the sacrifice needed in a time of war, are not taken aback when confronted by these wounds…..we look those soldiers in the eyes, recognizing them for the courageous and honorable people they are, and we say thank you without hesitation.
So if I took your comment wrong, I apologize, but if you weren’t such a troll here you wouldn’t be misunderstood when you aren’t talking from your butt.
January 18th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
If your point is to be taken at face value, then it’s also true that most americans of this day and age are not acquainted with the brutal comedy of errors that is war, how else could you explain a vast majority of support that turned into a majority opposed over the course of less than 10 years?
January 18th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
TImmah, you’re losing the point of this post. It’s about treating people who are recovering from severe injury- with dignity. The injuries can be from war or drug abuse or a car accident…doesn’t really matter. Why do you always take my posts and turn them into something totally different???????
January 18th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Actually my comment is a response to something kender wrote to me. It honestly isn’t directed at you.
The first comment I made is the only thing I wrote that addresses your post.
January 18th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Timmah, while I believe that sane people are opposed to war, it is the insane that don’t see the need for it at times.
The fools in this country, not to mention the rest of the world, that adhere to “Peace at any cost” are exactly the kind of people that let their freedom slip away, and are unwilling to defend it.
It is these people that also do not understand what price freedom, or the meaning of “sacrifice”, and also are so pety that they cannot comprehend anything being larger than their own petty wants and needs, which is why they don’t understand the minds and hearts of those that willingly place themselves in harms way in defense of ideals and beliefs that are much larger than their lives…..it is these people that deserve the honor and dignity of their privacy to heal, and not to be trotted out for photo ops and political ends or personal glories.
January 18th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I don’t disagree fundamentally with anything you said, as a matter of fact, I’m about as far from a “peace at any cost” liberal as one can feasibly get. I disagree however that this is somehow, some sort of “Crazy new world” after 9/11. Gimmie a fucking break, I’m supposed to believe that America’s in more danger from a loose collection of cave dwellers that wipe their asses with goats, as opposed to an ideological enemy with enough nuclear warheads pointed at us to blow the fucking world apart? Christ, If past leaders took on Bush’s paranoia and machismo, we’d all be overexposed shadows on a brick wall right now.
For instance, the Afghanistan war was not only justified, but necessary. It was a direct and effective retaliation to a heinous attack, It was well planned and well executed (save for the Tora Bora nonsense and a few other gaffs).
Most middle east experts agree that immediately following the Afghan invasion, Al Qaeda was in disarray, lacking respectable numbers and proper organization. Terrorism was way down.
Since the Iraq war, terrorism has increased over threefold.
The war in Iraq is almost literally the polar opposite. It had nothing to do with anything substantive, it redirected resources and attention away from the real enemy, it provided the Arab world with a perfect excuse and advertisement to recruit and take up arms against a perceived evil occupier, and is currently straddling the line between a manageable revolution and an all out civil war. The humanitarian situation has gotten worse every year since the invasion, and it was already pretty fucking sad to begin with. Even Afghanistan is starting to slip into becoming another opium country.
So basically Bush followed a brilliant execution (I will give him his due there) with a belligerent slap in the world’s face. He’s alienated half the world and greatly increased hatred of American policies worldwide.
All the wars and dictatorial laws in the world won’t keep the terrorists out of your backyard if the world hates you.
Couple all that with his indefensibly lax border policy during an age of unprecedented terrorism that he himself helped create and Bush goes from looking pretty damned good at first to looking like a miserable failure. One that most voters didn’t recognize before it was too late…
January 19th, 2006 at 1:28 am
You forgot Poland.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Timmah….to understand the strategy of why we are in Iraq, go read this article here.
I am tired of explaining it.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Kender. Two points.
The first is that the reason people still “scream” about the WMD’s is because this was the issue that the administration settled on to convince Americans to support the Iraq War. Yes, it wasn’t the only reason - we also heard talk of democracy, freedom, etc. But it ended up being THE main focus - the THREAT that Iraq posed. In retrospect, for the administration and its supporters, it probably wasn’t the best thing to focus on. However, it did work - if, by working, one means that it enlisted the initial support of the population.
The second point would be OF COURSE ITS ALL ABOUT THE STRATEGY. I’ve always hated it when people on either side of this issue simplify the whole thing into “Bush-bad/Iraq war bad/no blood for oil/Israel/etc.” or “fighting them over there so we don’t fight them over here/striking at the heart of Islamofacism/etc.” Things are more complex than that, as the article you link to points out.
While I disagree w/the conclusions made at the end of that article, it raises some valid points…and I appreciate it when people rise above the typical and cliched arguments to step back and look at the larger picture.
Seriously.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Shingles, WMDs were the reason that the MSM and the majority of people in the US paid attention to in the run up to war.
Remember, there is an average IQ and fully half of the people are stupider than that…..so off the bat we have a half of the population that is too stupid to be listened to……unfortunately they listen just enough to the 5 o clock news and read just enough of the paper to go vote democrat.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Shingles, WMDs were the reason that the MSM and the majority of people in the US paid attention to in the run up to war.
Remember, there is an average IQ and fully half of the people are stupider than that…..so off the bat we have a half of the population that is too stupid to be listened to……unfortunately they listen just enough to the 5 o clock news and read just enough of the paper to go vote democrat.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Kender hearts pressing the “Say It!” button.
Kender, are you saying that the administration didn’t push the whole “threat” angle? Terrorism, mushroom cloud metaphor, Powell’s UN presentation, etc.. So the whole “threat” thing was something concocted by the MSM and stupid people who vote democrat?
As Wolfowitz himself said that to persuade the public, “we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
Anyhow, for someone so incredibly smart, you missed my point entirely.
I was explaining WHY people still go on about the WMD. I then went on to say, however, that there were plenty of other reasons why we went into Iraq.
January 19th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Timmah –
“a loose collection of cave dwellers that wipe their asses with goats” pretty much sums up your level of knowledge on the GWOT and explains why your spewings are uniformly cretinous.
The enemy we face did not gallop king size camels into the Twin Towers, they executed an operation that made Otto Skorzeny’s or Yonaton Netaniahu’s masterpieces look amateurish, coordinating four nearly simultaneous skyjackings by people trained right here in the U.S. to fly airplanes. Had Bin Laden not decided the timing would be too complicated, the attack would also have included additional planes impacting in Los Angeles and London.
They’ve got personnel who have both advanced communications and computer skills and somewhere out there, an unknown number of suitcase nukes they bought years ago from former KGB agents.
Even if Osama and his top people are hiding out in caves or what have you, they still control a global terrorist network whose members want us dead.
You go ahead and follow the Utopian path of wishful thinking as far as it will take you, perhaps as far as your next glass of kool-aid. Meanwhile, the realists in this country will continue to see that you are protected, so you have the right to continue blathering against everything American.
Back on topic:
Raven, good job! I’m surprised that VP pulled what he did, and from meeting some of the guys at Walter Reed, I can see where the way these women came on would be most unwelcome. I can only hope that his write-up included a no-holds-barred, heavy handed ass-chewing, which would still not be enough corrective action.
January 19th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
shingles? Now that you have read the reasons why we are in Iraq, here are the oft-ignored smoking guns:
Proof that WMDs were found in Iraq.
Enriched Uranium; 1.77 metric tons
Chemical Weapons Agents
Chemical Warheads
Powdered Radioactive Material
Transcripts from CNN about roadside bomb materials with Sarin Gas
More on the Sarin Gas from Fox News
Clinton attacks saddams nuclear sites
Interview with a WMD inspector
January 20th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
where ya at shingles?
Truth cat get yer tongue, bwah?
January 20th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
hmm, I’m having problems posting…
January 20th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Yeah butter….we have a new plugin that detects idiocy and send the comments to spam heaven….so I don’t expect that too much you say will get in here…but maybe I can trun off that feature for a bit so we can laugh at you.
January 20th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Well, I took the time to write out a lengthy and reasonable rebuttal to what you’d written. It’s too bad your averse to that kind of dialogue.
January 20th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Kenber, actually I’ve been busy for the last couple of days. Ie., some of us have JOBS.
If it wasn’t about the WMD, why did you just list a whole bunch of posts ABOUT the WMD? Especially since I wasn’t arguing about whether or not they exist/ed. And especially since the Bush Administration doesn’t even bother to argue that they “found the WMD” - you’d think they would!
I was arguing with your point that the Bush administration didn’t push the WMD line before the invasion. They clearly did.
By the ways, I’m surprised you didn’t point me towards any Steven Hayes articles.
Or say that they were smuggled out and hidden in Syria.
(bangs head against desk)
January 21st, 2006 at 1:42 am
From the article: Wilkes said “a huge range of different isotopes” were secured in the joint Energy Department and Defense Department operation. They had been used in Iraq for a range of medical and industrial purposes, such as testing oil wells and pipelines. Uranium is not suitable for making a dirty bomb. But some of the other radioactive material - including cesium-137, colbalt-60 and strontium - could have been valuable to a terrorist seeking to fashion a terror weapon.
Such a device would not trigger a nuclear explosion, but would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive debris. While few people would probably be killed or seriously affected by the radiation, such an explosion could cause panic, make a section of a city uninhabitable for some time and require cumbersome and expensive cleanup.
However, this is NOT a WMD and it certainly wasn’t being hidden from either the UN or the US, both of whom were aware of these materials.
2. Regarding the Chemical Lab article, maybe you should read the entire article:
[Military spokesman Lt. Col. Steven A.] Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from some time after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Oops. That means it wasn’t even there before the invasion.
3. The Sarin Gas Shell: The shell was a leftover from pre-Gulf War, and was missing a component necessary to do any major damage. The Pentagon says that those using it had no idea what it was, and that it could not have done a lot of damage even of used properly because it was so old and sarin gas shells must be mixed at the time of explosion. One shell is not evidence of WMD.
4. The Cylcosarin Shells: IRAQ ROCKETS FOUND IN LATE JUNE TEST NEGATIVE FOR CHEMICALS
Baghdad, Iraq - On June 16, 2004, an Iraqi civilian led Polish Soldiers to two 122mm rockets he had found in Al Hillah. The rounds were tested and showed positive for Sarin gas. It has been determined that the rounds were left over from the Iran-Iraq war.
Due to the deteriorated state of the rounds and small quantity of remaining agent, these rounds were determined to have limited to no impact if used by insurgents against Coalition Forces.
The source led Soldiers to 16 more 122mm rockets over a period from June 23 - 26, 2004. Those 16 rounds were all empty and tested negative for any type of chemicals.
Centcom press release
5. Bill Tierney is a complete fruitcake/nutjob.
Too bad you didn’t link to this as well.
January 21st, 2006 at 3:41 am
Hey, whatever happened to that underground uranium plant Tierney claimed was in Iraq? He claimed he could drive to it with his eyes shut. Do you think they moved it to Syria?
January 22nd, 2006 at 9:39 pm
It wasn’t about the WMD, at least not entirely. WMD was one of about 16 counts against Saddam. Chief among these would be the repeated violation of Gulf War Ceasefire Treaties. Liberals are running this WMD thing into the ground, because its all they have. But as we can see, no one is listening. Dems still can’t get re-elected even with Bush’s flat-lined approval rating.
November 3rd, 2006 at 8:15 am
Well put. I have a question though. Why couldn’t the do gooder group have made the contribution directly to the hospital, specifying who was to get it and request pics of the wounded using it when they were ambulatory?