BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq, Jan. 29, 2008 – The Air Force Theater Hospital's 98 percent survivability rate for injured U.S. servicemembers would be meaningless if the wounded were unable to survive their journey out of the combat zone.
Four years into the war, the process of saving lives and safely transporting critically injured and ill troops out of Iraq has become one of the greatest military feats in modern history, according to Air Force Lt. Col. Beverly Johnson, chief nurse for the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility here.
The CASF is a minor conglomerate of different functions. It's at once a ward for the sick and injured and a recreation center for those who are able enough. It's a passenger terminal where travelers get bandages changed and customs agents come to the bedridden.
Patients are pre-assessed, assessed, and reassessed. Lessons have been learned and are applied. How will altitude affect cranial swelling for a traumatic brain injury victim? Will an arm in a cast swell in mid-flight? Burn patients must stay warm, current prescriptions must be filled, and care providers must anticipate every possible scenario before the patient goes by bus to the plane. Launch nurses pass on reports; other nurses pick the most critical patients up from the hospital’s intensive care unit.
"By the time most patients get here, they might have some pain, but they're pretty happy," said Air Force Staff Sgt. Joan Sanchez, lead technician for the litter side of the CASF ward. "For many soldiers, this is as nice a facility as they have ever seen in Iraq."
Sanchez and other CASF team members act as care providers, terminal agents and hospital logisticians. The team also has mental health professionals who monitor traumatic brain injury victims and support patients suffering from post-traumatic stress.
On the ground, the team organizes its passenger load based on the configuration of outbound cargo aircraft. A C-17 Globemaster III transport jet has to be reconfigured to become a flying hospital.
In addition to hosting the most comprehensive medical facility in Iraq, the Air Force Theater Hospital's CASF here acts as the hub for wounded troops being flown out of the country. If servicemembers from anywhere in Iraq require aeromedical evacuation from the theater, they will pass through the Air Force Theater Hospital and the hands of CASF team members en route to follow-on care, said Air Force Lt. Col. Rene Bloomer, Air Expeditionary Force CASF chief nurse.
The 60-member CASF team represents more than a half dozen specialties and facilitates one of the hospital's top priorities -- clearing beds.
"Our No. 1 goal is to get them here, quickly assess and stabilize them, and get them on an airplane," Johnson said.
Success at the hospital depends on a constant cycle. Staff members must always be ready to save new trauma victims and have enough empty beds for the next casualties.
Beyond the logistical achievement of maintaining constant airflow from Balad to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and to bases outside the combat zone, the aeromedical evacuation process has evolved and improved, said Johnson, a 15-year CASF veteran.
Aeromedical evacuation has been a military asset since World War II, she said, though at first on a limited scale and with equally limited capabilities. The Korean and Vietnam wars saw increasing use of air power in medical evacuations. Neither those wars, nor the limited casualties in Desert Storm, however, truly tested the system, she said.
But the simultaneous bombing of three U.S. embassies in East Africa in August 1998 and the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in a Yemeni harbor in October 2000 showed the modern capabilities of critical care teams and aeromedical evacuations. Johnson recalled when the system was being tested In the 1990s.
"The European Command called saying, 'What would happen if we had to move 1,000 casualties in a day?' I said, ‘We can't. We don't have enough aircrews to support that kind of movement.’ They've really built up the system, and it's been seamless since I've been here. It's really been revolutionary for the Air Force. It's always been a good system, but we've really put it to the test in this war, and it has performed phenomenally."
On the flight line, seriously wounded and ill patients are transferred to the Critical Care Air Transport Team -- specially trained flight medics, nurses and physicians who set up and staff the trauma ward in the sky.
On a busy day, 50 patients will head out to Germany. On a slow day, 10 or 12 patients might be outbound. Rarely is there a day without an aeromedical evacuation. Johnson said 600 to 700 patients move out from Balad every month now, a 20 percent decrease from what teams experienced during past rotations.
Aeromedical evacuation teams in general and CASFs in particular are not common in stateside military medical facilities. Airmen like Staff Sgt. Jessica Reese, a CASF medical technician, said the opportunity for additional training before her deployment and the ability to work outside her normal clinical experience make the facility a rewarding place to work.
A dermatology technician at home, she said she knows she's making a difference in Iraq.
"I'm so proud of what I do. I feel good to be taking care of these troops who have made such tremendous sacrifices. It's an honor to be here for them, to take care of them and to send them home safe," Reese said. Her favorite part of the job comes after litters are loaded on the flightline.
"For the guys who can walk, we line up in two rows and applaud them as they walk onto the plane. I love that. It's our way of saying, ‘We support you, and you get to go home now,’" she said.
Subject: WHAT'S MORE COSTLY THAN IRAQ?
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of the following :
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period." http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States". http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html
Total cost is a whooping... $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!
If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message, but on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, then forward it.
Snopes is provided for doubters:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/bankofamerica.asp
Social Security Change For 2008
The United States Senate voted to extend Social Security Benefits to Illegal Aliens beginning in 2008. The following are the senators who voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits. They are grouped by home state. If a state is not listed, there was no voting representative.
Alaska: Stevens (R)
Arizona : McCain (R)
Arkansas : Lincoln (D) Pryor (D)
California : Boxer (D) Feinstein (D)
Colorado : Salazar (D)
Connecticut : Dodd (D) Lieberman (D)
Delaware : Biden (D) Carper (D)
Florida : Martinez (R)
Hawaii : Akaka (D) Inouye (D)
Illinois : Durbin (D) Obama (D)
Indiana : Bayh (D) Lugar (R)
Iowa : Harkin (D)
Kansas : Brownback (R)
Louisiana : Landrieu (D)
Maryland : Mikulski (D) Sarbanes (D)
Massachusetts : Kennedy (D) Kerry (D)
Montana : Baucus (D)
Nebraska : Hagel (R)
Nevada : Reid (D)
New Jersey : Lautenberg (D) Menendez (D)
New Mexico : Bingaman (D)
New York : Clinton (D) Schumer (D)
North Dakota : Dorgan (D)
Ohio : DeWine (R) Voinovich(R)
Oregon : Wyden (D)
Pennsylvania : Specter (R)
Rhode Island : Chafee (R) Reed (D)
South Carolina : Graham (R)
South Dakota : Johnson (D)
Vermont : Jeffords (I) Leahy (D)
Washing ton : Cantwell (D) Murray (D)
West Virginia : Rockefeller (D), by Not Voting
Wisconsin : Feingold (D) Kohl (D)
(note there are 9 Republicans, including Presidential candidate McCain!)
Over the past few months you may have seen television commercials about our nation’s transition to digital television (DTV). I thought it would be helpful to you if I explain what this is all about. This is all occurring because the federal government has mandated television stations to switch from analog to digital broadcasting on February 17, 2009.
The most common question I hear is: What does that mean for me? If you receive a TV signal with an antenna or set-top “rabbit ears” and your TV set does not have a digital receiver built into it, you must buy a converter box to continue watching TV after February 17, 2009. By law, all TV sets sold in the United States after March 1, 2007 have been required to have a built-in digital tuner.
Please note: You will not need a converter box if your TV is connected to cable, satellite or other pay TV services, or if you bought a new set after March 1, 2007.
You might be thinking: What is this digital television and why is it so important? The mandate to end analog TV transmission was ordered by Congress to provide a common date for the broadcast industry to switch from the outdated analog method of broadcasting to the improved and more versatile digital method. Digital broadcasting is a great advancement over the current analog method because it dramatically improves picture quality while taking up a much smaller amount of the public frequency spectrum. The shift to digital will free up parts of the broadcast spectrum for public safety communications, such as police and fire department communications. The additional bandwidth will allow various emergency responders to communicate more effectively with each other in the event of a disaster. Another part of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies for them to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services, such as wireless broadband internet.
The change to DTV means that broadcasters will be able to offer high-definition (HD) broadcasts or multicast several programs at the same time on their digital bandwidth. High definition digital programming will look sharper and more detailed when viewed on a television capable of displaying HD-quality images. High-definition TV provides a much clearer image, allowing you to read the fine print on the screen and watch your favorite television shows or sporting events in crystal-clear quality! Multicasting will allow stations to broadcast multiple programs on the same channel. For example, a station at channel 7 will be able to offer its main programming lineup on channel 7-1, a second program on channel 7-2, a third program on channel 7-3, and so on. Multicasting and HD broadcasting are not possible using analog technology.
To help you make the switch to DTV, Congress created the TV Converter Box Coupon Program, which began this month. Households may apply for up to two coupons, each worth $40, which can be applied toward the cost of a converter box. To apply online, visit www.dtv2009.gov and follow the instructions. You may also call the coupon program’s toll-free 24-hour hotline at 1-888-388-2009. Converter boxes are expected to retail for around $60, and most major electronics retailers are expected to start selling them this February and March. If you want to learn more about the DTV transition, you can visit the federal government’s DTV website at: www.dtv.gov.
I hope this information is helpful.
Vernon J. Ehlers
Member of Congress
RENO, Nev. (AP) - John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Barack Obama's praise of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan—an anathema for many Democrats, particularly union members considered crucial to winning Nevada's Democratic caucuses Saturday.
But no president can do it alone. She must break recent tradition, cast cronyism aside and fill her cabinet with the best people, not only the best Democrats, but the best Republicans as well.. We’re confident she will do that. Her list of favorite presidents - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, George H.W. Bush and Reagan - demonstrates how she thinks. As expected, Bill Clinton was also included on the aforementioned list.
President Harry Truman once said, "No one nation alone can bring peace. Together, nations can build a strong defense against aggression and combine the energy of free men everywhere in building a better future for all." For 50 years, presidents from Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton built strong alliances and deepened the world's respect for us. We gained that respect by viewing our military strength not as an end in itself but as a means to protect a system of laws and institutions that gave hope to billions across the globe. In avoiding the temptation to rule as an empire, we hastened the fall of a corrupt and evil one in the Soviet Union. The lesson is that we cannot only be warriors; we must be thinkers and leaders as well.
..
Millions of people imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain silently cheered the day President Reagan declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Even if these ordinary men and women did not always agree with our policies, they looked to our president and saw a person -- and a nation -- they could trust.
WASHINGTON - It's become something of an urban legend that the Bush administration is out to retrieve enlistment bonuses from wounded veterans of the Iraq war, a claim perpetuated by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the latest Democratic presidential debate.
The New York senator told a national TV audience Tuesday night that the administration has shown negligence in its treatment of veterans and gave as a leading example a policy that doesn't exist.
THE SPIN: "The Bush administration sends mixed messages," she said. "They want to recruit and retain these young people to serve our country and then they have the Pentagon trying to take away the signing bonuses when a soldier gets wounded and ends up in the hospital, something that I'm working with a Republican senator to try to make sure never can happen again."
THE FACTS: The Pentagon's long-existing policy is to pay enlistment bonuses in full to soldiers who leave the armed forces early for reasons beyond their control. Officials last year reported clerical mistakes that resulted in a few wounded veterans being asked for bonus money back, said those cases would be redressed and revised the wording of its policy in September so lapses wouldn't be repeated.
