Korean Job Discussion Forums

[yawarakaijin]

[contrarian]

I know he had tried several times before. He is quite fit and has a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon do. There are some moves at the top level that his rigid spine makes impossible. He has most of a university degree and I expct that helps

[mcgeezer]

Soldiers are never to blame for startingor contonuing a war....it's the cowards who send these young boys and girls to do their dirty work and unfinished business.....
To bad the Bush twins and other government litters couln't be sent into combat, otherwise America would never be in another global conflict ever (unless invaded of course)

[contrarian]

mcgeezer, if you believe that you are a fool,

[mcgeezer]

beleive which part??

[TheUrbanMyth]

[cangel]

As I previously mentioned, why is a double amputee able to reenlist and a fat @ss totally unable to enlist? Seems to me there are tons of support positions, rear-echelon puke positions that could be staffed by wide-bodies. Oh, and I am not talking sumo-sized b@stards here, just guys who had a few too many chili cheese fries with their diet coke.

[The Bobster]

[The Bobster]

[cbclark4]

It's not new policy.

Returning the injured to combat and non-combat position has always been policy.

It was just more popular to opt for disability, it pays to be disabled.

It's not new, it's just news.

cbc

[The Bobster]

[The_Conservative]

[The Bobster]

GI to serve in Iraq after cancer battle

The 42-year-old mother of two from Los Angeles is again poised for duty after an aggressive treatment plan � including a May 22 lumpectomy, a second surgery a week later and a five-day targeted radiation treatment. Staying behind wasn't an option, she said.

"The commander said, 'Are you sure? You have an opportunity to go home and be with your family and go through this.' And I said, 'No, I have a family here. I have my civilian family, but this is where I need to be and where I'm needed,'" Cowie said [...]

"I knew this would not deter her. She was just determined to go. That's the kind of person she is," Pearl Cowie said.

Sgt. Juan Padilla, 37, of Riverside, Calif., said Cowie's decision to go to Iraq inspired the 1113th as it prepares to deploy.

"If she can go through all of that, through cancer and just wanting to go after all that, we can overcome anything," he said. "That's going to keep everybody's morale up."

Cool.

[cbclark4]

TAMPA, Fla. - He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him.

Four years ago almost to this day, Joseph Briseno Jr. was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain.

He is one of the most severely injured soldiers � some think the most injured soldier � to survive.

�Three things you would not want to be: blind, head injury, and paralyzed from the neck down. That�s tough,� said Dr. Steven Scott, head of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Tampa VA Medical Center, where Briseno has twice been hospitalized for extensive care. In recent days, Briseno was hospitalized yet again, this time at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.

As a high schooler, Briseno liked the Discovery Channel and CSI, and wanted to be a forensic scientist or investigator. He was 20 years old, attending George Mason University, when he was called up from the reserves and sent to war.

After he was shot, he was flown to Kuwait and then to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. His parents and two sisters rushed to his side.

�They told us, �Prepare for his service.� That�s how bad he was,� said his father, Joseph Briseno Sr., a retired career Army man.

But he survived. From Germany, he went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., then to McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Va. In December 2003, he went home, to Manassas Park, Va., where his parents, Joseph Sr. and Eva, quit their jobs to care for him.

�All our savings, all our money, was just emptied ... the 401(k)s, everything,� said Joseph Briseno, who took a new job a year and a half ago to make ends meet.

�We learned everything�
Various charities, especially Rebuilding Together, raised money to renovate their basement, supply a backup generator for the medical equipment, and install a lift so they can hoist �Jay,� as they call him, into a chair and bathe him in a handicapped accessible bathroom.

�If you asked me this from the very beginning, if we can handle it, I wouldn�t lie to you. I would say no, that there is no way. There�s no way that we�re going to learn all these things. But my wife and I, we learned everything. We are the respiratory technician, we are the physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists ... his wound care nurse,� Joseph Briseno said.

�It�s a lot of work and it�s hard, and some days are harder than the other days. But we don�t take this as a burden for us because he�s our son. We will do everything for him.�

The family has help from VA-provided nurses, but not around the clock. Jay�s mother and father often do overnight duty, making sure their son is turned every four hours so he does not develop bedsores, which can become infected and threaten his life. If they do not turn him and keep him on schedule, he does not sleep well and becomes agitated.

At the Tampa VA, a nurse taught Jay Briseno to swallow his saliva � a big step that allowed him to have some pureed foods instead of just tube-feeding. He has not been able to handle any solid food, though � his injuries are too profound.

More recently, the Tampa staff tried to wean him from the respirator. This involved painstaking therapy to strengthen his diaphragm by placing weights on his belly and gradually increasing the air pressure on the machine to try to create resistance and muscle strength. So far, it hasn�t worked.

He has had other trials: surgeries, procedures and medications for bladder problems, high blood pressure, the opening for his breathing tube, dead tissue on his tongue � even an ingrown toenail. The latest is the bone disease, osteoporosis.

He can respond to questions by grunting or grimacing, and occasionally can say �mom� or �go,� but not consistently. He often opens his mouth.

�We believe he is very frustrated because he wants to say something. Those are the hardest times for us, especially when he�s sick or not feeling well. He just lays there. We don�t know what�s wrong with him,� Joseph Briseno said.

They pray that he will continue to improve, not get worse. And they hope to move to Tampa, where they believe their son can get the best care.

�We always have hope. One day at a time � that�s the way we live our lives,� the elder Briseno said. �We�re so lucky to have him. He was a very good son from the very beginning. God gave Jay to us and he�s a blessing to us.�

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19403909/