“Traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of the war on terrorism,” said George Zitnay, co-founder of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, during a May hearing on Capitol Hill. The center, which began in 2001, was hoping for an additional $19 million for research and treatment for this increasingly prevalent injury.

But it appears as if the center will only get about one-third of that, according to an Aug. 8 article in USA Today. As of now, House and Senate versions of the 2007 defense authorization bill contain $7 million. Last year, the center got $14 million. The total price tag for the bill is $453.5 billion.

A spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee told the newspaper: “Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities. They didn’t have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year.”

It’s instructive to look at those priorities.

The overall bill is $9 billion less than President Bush requested. So even if a minuscule – yet vital – $7 million to $12 million were added, Congress could still call it fiscally prudent.

Then again, that would be deceptive because much of the $9 billion difference wasn’t really cut. It was merely shifted to non-defense departments, such as Education and Transportation.

In last year’s budget, the Department of Defense was allocated $77 million to send personnel to conferences in such far-flung locales as Florida, Las Vegas and Hawaii. Meanwhile, military hospitals are struggling to keep up with the influx of soldiers with brain injuries, and the Veterans Administration is insufficiently funded and equipped to handle the long-term care that’s often needed.

It’s unconscionable that 10 times as much is spent on conferences in fun-in-the-sun resorts than on care for soldiers who have made a painful sacrifice. Cut the sushi and mai tais instead.

We hear a lot from politicians on the need to support the troops and to give them everything they need on the combat field. It took awhile, but now all soldiers appear to be getting the body armor they need. But while the armor is fairly effective in preventing deaths from roadside bombs, those blasts are ravaging the face, neck and head. Blasts that would’ve killed soldiers in other wars are instead leading to amputations and severe brain injuries.

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where most wounded soldiers are first treated in the United States, is renowned for its amputation work. But doctors there acknowledge that they are struggling with traumatic brain injuries, which can be difficult to diagnose and treat. For one thing, the hospital has a shortage of brain specialists.

An estimated 1,200 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated for brain injuries. Left undetected, such injuries can lead to a lifetime of misery. But the Pentagon has been hesitant to cooperate with the Brain Injury Center’s proposal to screen all returning troops and create a database of victims.

Researchers suspect the Pentagon does not want to face up to the severity of the problem. They estimate that 10 percent to 20 percent of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered some form of concussion.

Our nation’s commitment to its troops shouldn’t end when they return from combat. That isn’t right for the troops; it isn’t right for their families.

It’s the worst kind of cutting and running.