The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for a series on various screwups at Walter Reed Hospital and the military bureaucracy in general, failing to give our wounded troops the TLC they so richly deserve. But I haven’t seen any major publication look at one of the biggest wartime stories, namely the spectacular, indeed miraculous, advance of medical science and technology. Many men and women are alive today, who would have perished from the same injuries in earlier times. Even a very few years ago. But this story–which you would think any serious editor would find totally newsworthy — hasn’t received the attention it deserves.
Since so many of the injuries involve violent explosions (think IEDs and their successor bombs and mines), we have a considerable number of amputees who need artificial limbs. And the Pentagon went to the people who developed the Sedgway scooter and said, in essence, if you guys are so smart why don’t you make prostheses that move like real arms, hands, legs and feet? And they did. Fast, even. Have a look at this terrific video. I think I may have posted it before, but it’s worth a hard, proud look. And it even sounds like one of my faves, robocop…