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How Sad!! ~SoBeK~

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Report: Bigger breasts offered as perk to soldiers

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 Posted: 6:46 PM EDT (2246 GMT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The U.S. Army has long lured recruits with the slogan "Be All You Can Be," but now soldiers and their families can receive plastic surgery, including breast enlargements, on the taxpayers' dime.

The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills.

"Anyone wearing a uniform is eligible," Dr. Bob Lyons, chief of plastic surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio told the magazine, which said soldiers needed the approval of their commanding officers to get the time off.

Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said.

The magazine quoted an Army spokeswoman as saying, "the surgeons have to have someone to practice on."

I don't see where service people that risk their lives for us daily should not get a few "perks" that civilians don't get. And trust me...the surgeons do need practice.

Military, Firemen and police risk everything daily to make our world safe and for a fraction of the pay of Movie Stars and Sport celebreties that glean the top of what perks the world can supply...and for what? Entertaining us.

What is sad is when people fail to appreciate the price these real hero's pay for us and begrudge them whatever small return they get.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

` Besides all that, what's wrong with a girl with a nice rack in military uniform? They ought to get some perks for risking their lives to keep Halliburton, et all, in the black! All those balled old officers should get rugs, too.
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Now I understand how John Kerry became such a big boob! --It must have been a perk from his Vietnam experience!

On a serious note, it's all the prison inmates that get everything from sex changes to implants that burns me up. (even heart lung transplants for those on death row). Why should tax dollars be spent on those that are supposed to be PAYING their debt to society! Why should hundreds of thousands of dollars be spent to keep someone alive who is sentenced to death? Instead, it is the innocent tax payers that are paying for some convicted felons' perks!

(try to find a republican that supports this inmate spending, then try to find a democrat that does----another reason to vote Republican!)

Military personnel should get all the perks they can. I just hope they aren't being "practiced" on, like the article suggests. They deserve the best surgeons money can buy, in my opinion.

Rodney

Considering the USN doctors almost killed me twice

(once by bungling a tonsillectomy that started a massive infection in my larynx...and then shooting me full of penicillion when my chart clearly indicated that I was allergic)

I sincerely hope the quality of military medicine has improved.

But see....That was in Nixon years, and while I liked Tricky Dick, his doctors sucked...(lol)just a joke Rodney.

Vote....But don't vote for a party. All you get is the same BS in a different cover.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

When he was in the army, and had a tooth problem, he had to pedal the machinery that makes the drill bit spin, while the dentist was drilling on him! (you would think they would get someone other than the patient to pedal!)

Medical technology keeps advancing, and I hope your experience was more due to what the current technology was, than to military "doctoring" negligence.

Rodney

Surely it is most important to an army doctor to acquire the skills to implant some silicon in a womans breast. This will surely help winning a war. The same applies for making a nicer nose by surgery.

It they want to improve their skills, they should go to a hospital where victims of street shootings or car accidents are treated. There they will get useful practice.

The whole thing was just initiated to lure women who can't afford such a surgery but are crammed with an inferiority complex into the army. Breast size increasing doctors and inferiority complex suffering women, that make a great army.

Don't you recognize that the government has difficulties to get enough people enlisted. Therefore they stoop to such outrageous methods.

Someone with a sound mind can only shake his head while reading this.
Boa constrictor

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The #1 Boa constrictor site in the world wide web

I agree...anyone with a sound mind would shake their head after reading your post H.E. You think reconstructive surgery is not useable in the military?

What if a woman is caught in the chest by scrapnel from an explosion (car bomb?). You don't think the surgeons might need the skill to repair the damage and restore some of her natural figure? What about a man who's face is destroyed by fire...You would deny the plastic surgery the skills that would give him back his face (including that nicer nose)? I guess they should spend the rest of their lives disfigured, because we don't owe them anything for their sacrifice?

Plastic surgery was not invented for vanity, even though it is the main use for it today. Proceedures such as you condemn give surgeons experience, so that when a really neccessary operation comes along, you don't get fools like the ones that bungled the operation on me and cost me most of my voice.

Sorry...but women don't join the military to get Boobs. Now that is Ludicrous! But if they decide to have them-why not? They are giving up years of their lives in service of this country and risking death. I think the (extravagence) is reasonable payback. After all...How many months/years does a woman have to work to pay for it as a civilian? I think less than the average enlistment and they are going on with their lives and careers at the same time with no benifit to us.

Yes...I am shaking my head at this one...in approval.

Frank

Frank
Besides...
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

In a reasonable administration cases of reconstruction of faces and breasts of wounded soldiers would be referred to external specialists.

This helps saving money because it is much more cheaper than wasting a lot of money getting army doctors experienced in this matter.

In all prospering economies the governments referre tasks that don't need to be done by civil servants to private companies in order to save money.

And: Cases of breast destruction and destroyed noses are surely not the majority of injuries. Therefore it is not worth to train army doctors on this.

Again: This is only an ambush to make people enlist.

Sure, if someone is injured in the line of duty they deserve to be taken care of. There are far better things to spend money on than altering ones look just because they arent happy with their body. I appreciate the service of our soldiers but that is just ridiculous.

EP
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5 cats

It is only rediculous to argue the cost and value of treatment to one who does not understand or appreciate what veterans do to serve or sacrifice. How do either of you know what the majority of injuries are? What makes you both experts on what skills a military surgeon might need?

I wish the surgeon that removed my tonsils would have had better training. The resulting infection that destroyed half of my larynx was easily avoidable by such training.

Spend at least one day in a veterans hospital (like I have spent months)and I assure you that both your additudes would change, as you looked at the ruined pieces of men and women who served this country and then are neatly forgotten in their hospital beds by the rest of you. I have seen the damage that war leaves first hand. I have lain on such a bed...what do you know of it?

On the subject of cosmetics. You would begrudge a bit of the same vanity you would indulge (tell me you haven't ogled a pair of enhanced Boobs). I say Hypocrites! You want them to serve (instead of you) but you deny them a perk because it might cost some tax dollars.

So you want to sit there with a cash register and ledger and determine what training a military doctor might need? Shame upon you both!

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Oh...it is also MORE EXPENSIVE to contract such work to a civialian surgeon. Civilian business allways overcharges for their services...Think $200 dollar toilet seats.

Also....What if that person who needed surgery was your son, your daughter, your girl friend...

Would you like to tell them that a qualified surgeon was not at hand because you felt it was a waste of tax dollars..?

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

... my son or daughter in the hands of an army doctor whose only experience in this matter is to have puffed up some breasts!!!

I take from your posts that you have served in Vietnam. I have a great regard for all who fought in this war (although it was a wrong war - but there was nothing the young soldiers could to about it).

It is without question that someone who is mutilated in service for his/her country deserves to be healed to the utmost extend. That includes cosmetic surgery, of course.

But this should be done by specialists who do this 5 times per day, 6 days a week and 330 days (whatsoever) in a year. Only those doctors who do nothing else but cosmetic surgery can do this properly. But not an army butcher who is ordered to puff up the breasts of 2 dozen women that went to the army because they wanted bigger breasts and can not afford it otherwise.

It is a downright shame to leave a wounded (and cosmetical mutilated) soldier to an army doctor with just some training.

One does NOT learn cosmetic surgery by only making bigger breasts. Frank, I am sure we agree that the reconstruction of a mutilated breast requires more than pushing some silicon under the adipose tissue. The army doctors will NOT learn the reconstruction of a destroyed breast by making bigger breasts.

And the reconstruction of a smashed nose is different to a surgery just to adjust a kink in an otherwise healthy nose.

Soldiers who left their health and unscathedness in the field deserve more care than that.

Again: The whole breast thing is only to make the people enlist because they need personnel for Iraq.

I cannot not take the credit for being a part of the Vietnam conflict. I saw action in the "quiet" conflict we had with Russia (that no one talks about). Actually I was injured (and ended my military career)just before I recieved my orders to Nam. My passion about the Nam war has more to do with good friends and shipmates that did not make it home.

Breast repair requires more than just inserting a prosthetic. Nose repair is more than shaving bone and cartillage to shape. Still I assure you that such proceedures though simpler than reconstructing a face can be part of the proceedure for a mutilated soldier. For one thing, skill can be aquired in skin grafting which carries far beyond cosmetically transfering the location of a nipple. Plastic surgeons do a lot of other proceedures like restoring noses and faces with grafts.

The bottom line is the more varied proceedures a surgeon masters, the better the surgeon. Granted it is not all about Breast puffing...but my own operation was bungled by a surgeon that failed to properly close a simple inscission and another who badly read a chart and descriped a drug I was allergic to.

Training is needed and the luxury of a wounded soldier having immediate access to top level civilian doctors is unrealitic and days could pass before a wounded vet could be transfered stateside where they could recieve such treatment-even if one was available. that kind of delay can be critical.

I am first in line to complain about the quality of military medicine...How do you improve the quality? Which is why any practice (even puffing a breast) is better for our troops.

Anyhow...What boils me is that if you want to get after waste don't knock the benefits to our troops...they deserve far more support than we give them. Chase some nice juicy congressmen or you know who. Much more deserving targets.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I totally agree with you that there are more deserving targets when it comes to save money than soldiers.

Just look at the managers of big companies: When they make a wrong decision a lot of money is burned and the average worker must bleed for it. German medias revealed that a top manager earns 240 times the salary of an average worker in his company.

But back to the big breasts:

When such a body part (face, breast) is damaged in action, the first treatment of the wound is crucial and NOT plastic surgery. Plastic surgery will be applied months later. In many cases several operations are necessary to get the desired result. So it is neither necessary nor usual to apply plastic surgery as a first measure. If fact, this would be wrong and mostly impossible.

In my opinion the military doctors should be well-trained in the treatment of injuries that occurs in action and the normal diseases that a soldier can suffer (including tonsillitis).

You are quite right. However it changes nothing.

It really boils down to two questions.

Does the common soldier deserve this perk?

YES

Does plastic surgery training improve the versatility and skill of a surgeon?

YES

But one other thing...Cosmetic surgery may come later, but a surgeon with that training will make descissions based not just on saving the life...but also preparing the patient for those future surgeries.

It increases the surgeon's options and by that the patient's later on.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."