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Person of the Day

MARCH 5, 2007
BOB WOODRUFF, ABC reporter who, after a long convalescence from life-threatening head injuries sustained in Iraq, has re-emerged with a documentary about his own story as well as those of others wounded in Iraq. What would have been an astoundingly brave work turned, by happenstance, into a perfectly timed push to the spreading scandal of the Bush administration’s Katrina-ing of the vets a Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere. As detailed this morning by Paul Krugman in the Times, this scandal is less about one hospital than penny-pinching and privatization fracturing the entire system. Clear policy choices from the top. Here are some sketches I made from powerful photos in last week’s Newsweek by Ethan Hill.
ALBERT ROSS Two years after losing his leg in a grenade attack he still doesn’t have a primary care physician.
MARISSA STROCK Lost both legs in her Humvee. Her two buddies died. She wears their names on her back.
RORY DUNN Suffered traumatic brain injury riding in an unarmored Humvee. The doctor at the scene decided he would die, and so left him untreated.
KERI CHRISTENSEN Struggles with deep emotional scars, a form of illness the army is especially unprepared to treat.
IRAQI SOLDIERS Are wounded at twice the rate of Americans, with severely limited prospects for treatment. (from photo by Peter van Agtmael, Polaris)
© 2024 Steve Brodner