I cannot help but wonder what it will be like for the young men and women wounded in Iraq. . . . For us, in 1968, it was the Bronx veterans hospital paraplegic ward, overcrowded, understaffed, rats on the ward, . . . urine bags overflowing onto the floor. It seemed more like a slum than a hospital. Paralyzed men lying in their own excrement, pushing call buttons for aides who never came, wondering how our government could spend so much money on the most lethal, technologically advanced weaponry to kill and maim human beings but not be able to take care of its own wounded when they came home. . . . Has any of it changed?

—Ron Kovic

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