Pistons? Microcomputers? You bet:
According to the video 1 out of 5 single amputee soldiers return to duty. That’s amazing. I hope it’s out of a dedication to their job though, and not because “someone’s gotta pay the bills” because the disability money is not enough to live off.
Comments
15 responses to “Bionic Limbs For Amputee Soldiers”
Is that anchorwoman Hilary clinton in a wig? O.o
And this is amazing. Now, how many amputees will get something of the sort? :/
Absolutely amazing. It is terrible that the injuries occur in the first place but at least now they can not only walk again but decide if they want to remain active or not.
brb, studying up on mechanical engineering.
That’s pretty amazing! I guess I’m not firing on all cylinders yet – when you said, “According to the video 1 out of 5 single amputee soldiers return to duty” I thought, well, there are probably very few married soldiers who get injured like this and return to duty, so they only quoted how many single soldiers return. Then when I watched the video I realized that it meant those with a single amputation! LOL
All,
The soldiers have a few hurdles to returning to active duty. The injury must not imped their ability to accomplish all tasks required of a soldier in their specific military occupational specialty. If not, they must reclassify to a different MOS. If that is not possible, then the soldier will be medically discharged. The change in attitudes is that the discharge is not automatic as it had been in the past. Soldiers have the opportunity to find a slot that will allow them to serve.
When I was training at Ft Benning in 2008, an NCO with one amputation was serving as an instructor for Ranger Indoctrination Process (RIP). Every morning, I would see him running the hell out of the candidates who were training near us. You simply do not run the hell out of soldiers who have volunteered for the Ranger Regiment unless you have a strong heart and a desire to contribute. Doubly so when you are using a prosthetic lower leg.
You should try telling that to my good friend who was rendered legally blind after a bullet pierced his MICH helmet. The bullet bounced off his skull, and sent fragments of skull deep into his brain. He was in the hospital for more than a month, because he was still at Walter Reed when we got home; I drove up there to pick him up. He has what he describes as large black lakes in his eyesight. He can see, but not the full range; he has to move his head around to get a full picture. He remained on active duty. He even deployed to Iraq and back to Afghanistan (obviously he wasn’t going out on patrols). He remained on active duty for at least four more years, and his MOS never changed from 11Z.
Josh,
This article is about amputees, not TBI. But your friend’s experience only reinforces my point “The change in attitudes is that the discharge is not automatic as it had been in the past. Soldiers have the opportunity to find a slot that will allow them to serve.”
As technology progresses soldiers might just choose to stay in the military because the cost of bionic limbs may-be more than one can afford in the civilian world.
“Oh the places we go” This is amazing! The servo noises sound like they are kind of loud, but I’m pretty sure if you can hear that your also with within range.
This is how it starts, you know. Next they’ll be taking the brains of dead Detroit police officers and putting them in a robotic suit. He’ll say, “dead or alive, you’re coming with me.” After that it’s a small leap to fully automated robots. These will, of course, eventually become self-aware and take over, and then we’ll be battling a bunch of terminators saying, “Hasta la vista, baby,” trying to take over the world. It’s a slippery slope folks!
Do you think the computers will fix the accent in the voice?
One of these days, amputees returning to duty would probably be assigned to exoskeleton or mecha duty or something =p
I’ve been out to TDI in Ohio and have nothing but great things to say about their training!
I was reading a discussion on Reddit about whether cyberpunk has come true, ( http://redd.it/f6ghu ) so when I got to your story with its subtitle “Pistols? Microcontrollers? You bet.” I was a little bit shocked and awed, as it were. I mean, it’s easier to wrap a prosthetic forearm around a pistol-calibre weapon than a proper rifle, but still – the barrel probably has to form the structural core of the forearm, and how the hell do you get bullets to the chamber reliably without anything sticking out at a right angle, and then that I had misread the headline.
Bravo, but I like my version better than yours.
Hey thats my hometown station!