Global IssuesPAKISTAN: Soldiers Pay a Price in War on Terrorism
Army soldier Zaheer Abbas and his squad were hunting down militants in the outskirts of Darra Adamkhel, a town in northwest Pakistan famous for its weapons workshops, when they suddenly found themselves under a surprise volley of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Before he knew it, Abbas found himself thrown into the air. Disoriented but conscious throughout the attack, he recalled that when he fell to the ground, his fellow soldiers rushed to surround him. 'I felt nothing, no pain, but as I looked down, I saw myself in a pool of blood.'
That was two years ago. These days, the 25-year-old Abbas, who has been in the army eight years, counts himself lucky to have survived although he is maimed for life and his plans for a military career gone forever.
'I lost both my legs below the knee and two of my dearest friends,' he told IPS, sitting on a bed at Pakistan’s Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine (AFIRM) in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, 16 km from Islamabad. 'I found out about them (his friends) a week later.'
Since 2003, close to 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have died in combat, while another 9,180 have been wounded, according to the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), an armed forces organisation that coordinates military information with the media and civil society.
Most injuries are like those Abbas sustained: a result of mine blasts, IEDs, shell and missile attacks, gunshot injuries and mortar explosions. Many of them get treated at AFIRM, which was set up in 2001 as an outpatient institute but had expanded into a 100-bed hospital by 2005.
AFIRM registrar Major Dr Mohammad Ali Raza said the institute is Pakistan’s only hospital offering state-of-the-art 'restoration' with all the sub-disciplines in rehabilitation medicine under one roof. It has a prosthetic workshop and employs a psychologist, speech and occupational therapists, physiotherapists and rehab nurses working round-the-clock to ease the pain — both visible and invisible — of the men who are paying the price of fighting terrorists.
The war-wounded soldiers treated here have sustained peripheral nerve injuries, traumatic brain injury, polytrauma, muscular trauma, and stiffness of major joints, among others.
But the signature injury of this war has been limb loss. 'The largest number of soldiers that come to the institute have had amputations,' said Raza. 'Each year the amputees are increasing.'
In 2007, AFIRM received 10 war-wounded soldiers with amputations; the number increased to 84 in 2010. And since January, the hospital has already received 50. 'It’s a high figure for a rehabilitation hospital with a limited number of beds and limited resources,' said Raza.
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, an academic and peace activist, predicts a further increase in the number of injured soldiers. 'Attacks by Islamists on the Pakistan army will persist even after the last U.S. and NATO soldiers leave Afghanistan, and after Pakistan's ties with the U.S. are irreparably severed.' Hoodbhoy was referring to the U.S. withdrawal of support from the Pakistani army, which has been accused of coddling militants.
While the U.S. undoubtedly catalysed Pakistan’s bitter internal strife, Hoodbhoy blames Pakistan’s army leadership for this. 'The army had cultivated jihad (struggle in the path of God) as an instrument of foreign policy for three decades, and is still convinced it did no wrong,' Hoodbhoy said.
'Even if the U.S. was now to miraculously evaporate into space, jihadists would not pause in their violent struggle to establish an Islamic state in Pakistan,' he said.
At the institute, psychologist Ahmer Iqbal is busy with his daily rounds. He says physical and mental wounds go hand in hand, and without psychological counselling, rehabilitation would be incomplete.
If a soldier suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Iqbal says, it can affect the whole family. He often has to organise family sessions to help improve communications and to work through the problems. However, because of 'our faith, resignation to fate and strong family ties,' Iqbal says, the occurrence of PTSD is uncommon.
Maj. Gen. Akhtar Waheed, who heads the hospital, told IPS that AFIRM has expanded its services, over the years, to keep up with patients’ needs. 'We’d have the soldiers up and about, but we began noticing that many would return in a much more mentally disturbed state.'
The brutal reality of the war, according to Gen. Waheed is that 'wounded soldiers feel written off, all ambitions having been capped.'
With 800 patients being treated in a day, the hospital — with its four consultants, nine registrars, one psychologist, a speech therapist, six physiotherapists, eight rehab nurses, and 100 beds for the troops — seems desperately stretched. 'But we are managing them all,' Raza said. The plan is to raise the number of beds to 150 as soon as possible.
A year back, AFIRM decided to add a vocational training programme to its institute. The courses include tailoring, embroidery, computer and electronics training. 'The positive outcome is that quite a few of the men with disability can now be adjusted into sedentary jobs within the army and won’t feel so completely worthless,' said Waheed.
For three months — from the time the explosion happened till he was discharged from the hospital where he was first taken — Abbas’ family had no clue about the extent of his injury. 'When I reached home and my family saw me coming on crutches, they were devastated,' he added.
Recently, Abbas was fitted with prosthetic legs. 'I now want to move on and lead as normal a life as I can,' he said, adding that he would like to be 'adjusted' back into the army, even if it means a monthly salary of only 10,000 rupees (116 dollars).
'Perhaps they can give me a job as a telephone operator,' he said hopefully. 'I’ve given so much of me to my country, the very minimum I am asking, in return, is a job.'
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service