There’s an interesting article with that title in the Birmingham Post today. Whilst it contains several phrases which drive TheEye to distraction including the inaccurate, fatuous, shallow and trite “Rather than having dozens of small hospitals dotted around the country the military decided to pool medical resources.” (read 13th Spitfire’s excellent recent post on that subject too)  it does make very poignatnt reading.

Here’s the start but go there to read the rest:

An increasing number of injured soldiers are being treated at Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital as the conflict in Afghanistan intensifies. Phil Vinter visits the military ward to find out how medics are coping.

The wounded are the footnotes of war. Those who pay for their courage with their lives receive full military funerals. Tributes are paid in the media and by the Prime Minister.

But for those who stare death in the face yet defy the odds and live there are no tributes from Gordon Brown and no mention in the papers.

The forgotten army of permanently damaged service personnel are labelled ‘the lucky ones’, because they survived. Yet the injuries they receive are so debilitating their lives are changed forever.

Arms and legs blown off by improvised explosive devices, eyeballs shredded by flying pieces of shrapnel, colostomy bags permanently fitted because the bowel is ruptured beyond repair. Unpleasant reading isn’t it? But that’s the reality of what happens to the ‘lucky’ ones.