i'm the bombardier

those of you who read joseph heller's catch-22 (or even saw the movie) know what that means

it was real life then, but it's more so now only because of the sheer numbers of those that survive combat wounds

A Shock Wave of Brain Injuries

By Ronald Glasser
We can save you. But you might not be what you were."
Neurosurgeon, Combat Support Hospital, Balad, Iraq

This is the new physics of war. Three 155mm shells, linked together and combined with 100 pounds of Semtex plastic explosive, covered by canisters of butane or barrels of gasoline, can upend a 70-ton tank, destroy a Humvee or blow an engine block through the hood of a truck. Those deadly ingredients form the signature weapon of the war in Iraq: improvised explosive devices, known by anybody who watches the news as IEDs.
Some of the impact of these roadside bombs is brutally clear: Troops are maimed by projectiles, poisoned by clouds of bacteria-laced debris and burned by post-blast flames...............