A typical photograph of the thousands taken everyday in Bush's Iraq might not even get my attention in the constant blur of images to which we've all been exposed over the past year.  However, this photograph, just like every photograph in Bush's Iraq being taken, will forever capture and memorialize for eternity when the world changed completely for some everyday person.  Maybe you know that person, maybe you don't.  But, maybe that person is your co-worker, a neighbor, a friend, or someone in your family.

This particular photograph depicts soldiers from the 31st Combat Support Hospital off-loading the wounded in Bush's Iraq.  It was used for an ABC news reporter's story about Combat Fatigue among the medical corps.

It is no new discovery that people who care for other people in a stressful environment can suffer phsychological and emotional problems.  These problems can then manifest themselves in any range from emotional detachment or outward coldness as a psychological survival mechanism, or simple anxiety, stress, and anger.  Police officers can snap and lose it.  Emergency Medical Technicians can get burned out.  Even Certified Nursing Aides working in Nursing Homes can be totally stressed out.

If you've ever clicked on the name Helleena on the TAG board or in the blog comments at Thunderstorms, and then visited her blog, Life at Work, you can read some first-hand accounts of how stressful working in a nursing home can be for her.  If you haven't done that recently, I'd like to point out her second Life at Work blog entry -- the first one obviously saying, 'welcome to my new blog' -- is entitled What will break your heart and make you smile at the same time.

Helleena's CNA stories are not unusual.  Unfortunately, it is altogether very normal and business-as-usual in nursing homes all over the United States.  Besides visiting Life at Work, one need only read some of the description of Tom Gass' book Nobody's Home to get some idea of what is like for CNAs:

Gass brings the reader into his sterile building with its flat metal roof and concrete block walls. Like an industrial park complex, it is clean, efficient, and functional.  He is blunt about the institution’s goal: as long as the staff keeps those faint hearts pumping, the life savings and Medicaid dollars keep rolling in. With 130 beds in the nursing home, the owner grossed about three million dollars annually. As a relatively well-paid aide, Gass made $6.90 an hour.

In a calm, intelligent and matter-of-fact style, Gass describes his often unpleasant daily routines. He cleans, feeds and dresses the patients; tries to converse with them, although they are often senile; and mostly, attempts to preserve their dignity.

Click here to visit the website of Captain Andy Houghton

Trying to actually care for people in an environment that seems to cause injury, impede care, and reward these overworked caregivers with low wages is stressful -- whether you're talking about a CNA in a Florida nursing home or a Combat Medic in Bush's Iraq.

"We call it compassion fatigue," says Lt. Col. Sally Harvey, a U.S. Army psychologist. "It's the cost of caring day after day. Our staff experiences many of those same emotions that our patients do. Some people can get depressed, can feel overwhelmed. It's very much akin to what we call battle fatigue for soldiers who are out there on the front lines."

Every photograph, whether in the news or on the cover of a book, tells the story of someone -- a real person -- someone you might know.  And, sometimes it captures the moment when your life changed forever.  My personal experience over the last few years causes me to see my mother in that wheelchair, alone in the hallway, and is why I dropped everything to come down to Florida to care for her.  Even looking at that book cover  -- even a year after my mom's death -- makes me want to start crying all over my keyboard, right now.