Help needed for warriors

The logo for the Wounded Warrior Project, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based initiative to heighten awareness about the plight of veterans, is a silhouette of soldiers, one carried on the shoulder of another. It appears on the project’s Web site beneath a slogan and an admonition: “The greatest casualty is being forgotten.” The danger of that is real as America’s attention shifts from war in Iraq, where victory is at hand, to the economy, where battles are being lost.

Another project under a similar moniker, the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program, stands at center stage at the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville, where a two-day summit on veterans concludes today. Frequently unnoticed is the extraordinary work that takes place at the rehabilitation center, nestled on a sleepy campus just off Route 250 with the Blue Ridge forming a stunning backdrop. Wilson’s staff provides vocational rehabilitation programs for people with disabilities. Now the center is stepping to the fore to help veterans scarred on foreign battlefields make their way home in literal and figurative senses.

Iraq has heralded the convergence of warfare’s traditional brutality and remarkable advances in combat medicine since America last engaged in prolonged military intervention abroad. Some 59,000 souls perished in Vietnam, where hundreds of thousands more waged a losing war to prevent communism’s spread. Higher percentages of soldiers are surviving in Iraq, where fewer warriors have been sent and medicine has sharply driven up survival rates. But medicine cannot save shattered limbs and it cannot erase war’s horrors from the minds of those who fight.

Here is where Virginia Wounded Veterans and the Wilson Rehabilitation Center step in. The state General Assembly and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine signed the program into law earlier this year, in anticipation of the addition of more than 50,000 veterans to the state population over the next 20 years.

That group will include many soldiers affected by post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. Their needs will be many. Some will battle to regain the mental powers that helped them survive war and are badly needed to help them work their way back into jobs and to function in society. Others will combat substance abuse while trying to shake the memories. And many will be plagued by physical and financial struggles.

At the summit in Fishersville, the invisible wounds of war and the system’s challenges in healing them are in focus. Because veterans’ unseen plight is so difficult to gauge, the program has been titled “Painting a Moving Train,” a vivid depiction of the difficulties confronting health-care providers and veterans and their families.

For those yet to grasp why this matters, whether or not one knows friends or relatives who have served, there is the factor of money. State funding will not cover the full cost of the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program. To bridge the gap, the program is seeking donations.

No group is more deserving of American compassion than those who have cast themselves into the paths of spraying bullets and flying shrapnel in service to their country. All who live in freedom here are indebted to those who safeguard it with their lives and bodies elsewhere.

Ours is a place of remarkable diversity in thought and political persuasion, as evinced during Tuesday’s election. But one trait in particular unites the central Shenandoah Valley, that of generosity. Even amid an economic downturn, area charitable groups tell us giving remains strong. We urge that spirit to be applied to the Virginia Wounded Warriors Program. To learn more, visit http://www.dvs.virginia.gov/woundedwarrior/.