The Times (Trenton, NJ) June 27, 2004
Defining `casualty of war'
By Larry Hanover
TRENTON - "I'm a casualty of war," said Spc. Brian Whetstone, who was sent back to his home state of New Jersey from Baghdad two months ago with anxiety attacks and possible heart disease.
Not so, according to Army officials. They say the 48-year-old National Guardsman is simply an "evacuee."
Caught in the shadows of a war where at least 850 U.S. soldiers have died are an undetermined number who suffer from an array of medical problems, ranging from back problems to depression to disease caused by sand-fly bites.
And whether these soldiers are casualties of war is a topic that rankles many of them.
Not only are the labels ambiguous but the statistics, too. There is no comprehensive compilation of numbers for every military member affected by injury and illness, contributing to controversy over whether the military is underreporting the costs of war.
But the Army does report totals for soldiers evacuated for medical treatment. Through May, 12,000 had been shipped out of Iraq, more than 90 percent for reasons other than combat wounds.
The remaining evacuees are classified as suffering from disease and nonbattle injuries, labels to which some soldiers object.
Among them is Whetstone, part of a group of six close-knit Trenton-area Guardsmen from the 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery, four of whom have been evacuated with wounds and other medical problems.
Whetstone's problems are not from combat. But, he argues, they represent the cumulative effects of a middle-aged man subjected to heavy physical demands amid intense heat and the stress of never knowing when insurgents might attack.
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Whetstone, who rejoined the National Guard in March 2003 after a 19-year retirement, was part of an elite squad performing reconnaissance and escorting officers to meetings, he said.
His job included trying to spot Iraqis with AK-47s or military uniforms, then jumping out of his vehicle to arrest them, sometimes in the unsettling atmosphere of a crowded Baghdad marketplace.
He figured he could keep up with the younger guys. And in late March, when a unit leader offered a two-day pass to whomever could win a 3-mile run while wearing their rucksacks, Whetstone decided to compete.
He had to stop because of chest pains, he said. He was evacuated by helicopter to a military hospital, but heart tests turned up negative.
Two weeks later, in 105-degree heat and after 2 1/2 days of virtually no sleep, he was on a 16-hour mission to secure an Iraqi police station from insurgents when he began hyperventilating and became dehydrated, he said.
In late April, he was evacuated to Germany and diagnosed with "adjustment disorder," anxiety and depression, he said. In May, he returned to the United States and is now on "medical hold" at Fort Dix, often getting passes to come home to Trenton.
Whetstone said he accepts that his problems are at least partly psychological, but he is awaiting tests to determine whether his symptoms are heart-related, too. He doesn't know if he gets pains from the strain of wearing 40 pounds of body armor over long periods, the stress of what it represents or both.
Regardless, he said, he is a casualty.
"Two-and-a-half days no sleep, then a 16-hour mission, I can't do it," Whetstone said. "You're already tense and hyper. You're in a mental mode where you've got to watch every step. It just beats you down. A man my age, I can't keep up."
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To Lt. Col. Dan Jones, chief of medical operations for the surgeon's office at U.S. Central Command (Centcom), Whetstone is a "disease-nonbattle loss," though the treatment is more important than the label.
"The focus from our perspective is to (get) the guy in the right condition with the right resources to protect him," Jones said. "The reason why we move out so high a number is it's such an austere environment (in Iraq). We don't have the capability to do more assessments. A lot go out of (the military) theater, especially on the heart side."
Through May, the Army listed 4,100 soldiers with nonbattle injuries and 6,600 more with disease.
Nearly half of the disease evacuations were for medical reasons (3,065), including neurology (512), infectious disease (424) and cardiology (404).
The remainder of disease evacuations were 2,813 soldiers requiring surgery and 710 with psychiatric disorders.
Despite the precision in categorizing the types of evacuations, the number of overall casualties remains elusive.
The 12,000 evacuees include only 1,300 soldiers wounded in action. The Pentagon reports nearly 5,300 wounded overall, meaning three-fourths are treated without being evacuated.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based military think tank, said there have been spikes and drops in wounded counts from one month to the next. To him, that illustrates the counting is "fubar - fouled up beyond all recognition."
Sue Niederer of Hopewell Township, whose son, 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in Iraq in February, agrees.
"When we hear a number, it's a number, it means nothing," said Niederer, who joined Military Families Speak Out, an antiwar group. "It goes in and out. But when you see what's behind that number, the families, the friends, the relatives, now you're putting a picture and face together. This is what stays in people's minds. That's what they don't want to show."-- -- -- Centcom spokesman Sgt. Maj. Lewis Watson called such accusations "wild conspiracy theories." The military does the best it can to report casualty statistics accurately, he said.
"That's a system that doesn't always work perfectly," he said.
"Then it's a question of what's reported or not. If it's a sprained ankle, maybe you bandage it and send him out and the only record is personal. There's no statistician on duty in every hospital."
Whetstone's focus is on getting to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for tests to see if his heart is healthy. He said he is willing to return to Iraq but wants doctors to dictate whether he is able and whether his duties should be limited.
Still, he said, he hopes soldiers like himself are given their proper due as casualties.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "my conditions came from being in Iraq."
© Copyright 2004, The Times (Trenton, NJ)
