Brain.

This is coolbert:

"US Army initiates brain-function tests for deploying troops"

Here is an idea that has a lot of merit to it.

"Before they leave for Iraq, thousands of troops with the 101st Airborne Division line up at laptop computers to take a test: basic math, matching numbers and symbols, and identifying patterns. They press a button quickly to measure response time."

"It is all part of a fledgling army program that records how soldiers' brains work when healthy, giving doctors baseline data"

Right!! Exactly!! Establish a baseline of a soldiers mental activity PRIOR TO GOING INTO COMBAT!! How many and what type of problems as presented on the laptop computer can the soldier do, how fast can he/she do them, and how well, with what accuracy. A measurement of mental activity and acumen.

Will allow doctors to - - "help diagnose and treat the soldiers if they suffer a traumatic brain injury".

What degree of mental impairment has the soldier experienced from a head wound? And how well is the soldier responding to treatment? To what extent is the wounded man being restored to a pre-combat status?

Questions of this nature can now be answered with a pretty good degree of certainty.

[Some of you devoted readers will recall that the officers and senior sergeants of the 101st Airmobile Division are also part of another program. Observe an autopsy and actually handle internal organs of a person with their hands. Accustom the person to seeing a dead body, blood, dismemberment of a corpse. What they will see in Iraq they have already experienced, albeit if only briefly and in a sanitized environment. The shock of seeing dismembered and mutilated troops when encountered on the battlefield for the first time will be that much less for senior leaders.]

"Hey, nobody ever said this was going to be easy!!" - - Bert.

coolbert.