BACKGROUND The microbiology of war wounds has changed as medicine and warfare have evolved. This study was designed to determine the microbial flora and bacterial quantification of present-day war wounds in US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan upon arrival at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC). METHODS Patients with extremity combat wounds treated with a vacuum-assisted wound closure dev...

In 1954, Iraq’s industrial economy consisted mainly of “factories” employing one or two workers. With only fifty-five Iraqi engineering students graduating that year, there was no reason to believe that that situation would change anytime soon. But in twenty years the Iraqis were laying the foundation for a massive chemical-weapons industry, setting up a nuclear program that would eventually gr...

the main purpose of this article is to investigate the role of the great powers in the eight- year's old war between iran and iraq. due to the nature of the various variables involved in this study, we have to employ political as well as international theories. because of the effect on international political order on this war, it was realized that the approach taken by the neorealism incl...

The legacy of Gulf War Syndrome led to fears that the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003 would have an eff ect on the mental health of the UK armed forces. Contrary to many people’s expectati ons, deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan has not led to an increase in mental health problems and the overall number of personnel with symptoms of post-traumati c stress disorder is low. But the...

Although the 2004 presidential election was predicted to be razor close, Republican President George W. Bush became the first candidate to win a majority of the popular vote since his father in 1988. Bush’s coattails extended to the U.S. Congress as well, with Republican gains in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Journalists and pundits immediately attributed Republican success ...

U.S. combat veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have elevated rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to the general population. Self-compassion, characterized by self-kindness, a sense of common humanity when faced with suffering, and mindful awareness of suffering, is a potentially modifiable factor implicated in the development and maintenance of PTSD. We examined the co...

M1 reported in 1970 that 193 of a cohort of 2,600 casualties that were killed in action in Vietnam died of isolated extremity hemorrhage. The percentage of fatalities that resulted from exsanguination from extremity wounds was 7.9%; this was the leading cause of preventable death among US military casualties in the Vietnam War. Maughon commented at the time that little progress had been made in...

In 2003, the United States launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq which was largely defended by the Bush Administration as an act to protect national security. In the months leading up to the attack, however, the US was still in the decision-making process — should we work with the UN on enforcing sanctions? go in only with Allied support? launch a pre-emptive strike with mainly US forces? ...

During the Iraq-Iran war of 1980 -1988, the most commonly used chemical warfare agents (CWA) were nerve agents and sulfur mustard gas (SM). SM was used frequently as a chemical weapon by Iraq during the war against Iran, and had deleterious effects on Iranian military troops and the unprotected inhabitants of Sardasht, Iran and Halabche, Iraq. In this report, we review the scientific literature...