For all its high-tech weaponry, modern warfare is leaving U.S. troops with an alarming incidence of traumatic brain injuries. More worrisome still are the cases going undiagnosed for lack of any visible wounds.

Both groups are likely to need the specialized care provided by the Veterans Brain Injury Center, which has one of its 10 facilities at Fort Bragg, an hour south of Raleigh. Yet, as The N&O's Jay Price reports, the Pentagon and congressional budget-makers have whacked the center's proposed budget in half: from $14 million this year to $7 million next year.

That cut should not stand. In fact, the center's leadership made a strong case for a $19 million budget, and it's a request that deserves to be honored. At a minimum, America owes the young men and women who voluntarily risked their lives in service to their country the best medical care available.

To read the stories of U.S. troops hurt in faraway wars is always humbling. So many are young, with entire lives ahead of them, lives of unimaginable struggle due to their grievous injuries.

The Pentagon has reports of 1,200 brain injuries among troops who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Suicide car bombs and roadside bombs, the guerrilla fighters' weapons of choice, are responsible for most of those and likely many more. Improved body armor and helmets save lives, but the brain can be badly jolted with no visible wounds.

Many Vietnam veterans who went untreated for such injuries ended up in mental hospitals or prison. Tragically, many others resorted to suicide to put a stop to their suffering.

Of 18,000 troops injured in Afghanistan and Iraq, as many as 10,000 may have suffered some brain injury, estimates Stuart Hoffman, a brain injury researcher at Emory University. Even in peacetime, thousands of military people suffer head injuries doing inherently dangerous jobs. Those numbers represent a future caseload for the Veterans Brain Injury Center.

Besides diagnosing and treating the injured, the center helps front-line commanders figure out if a soldier is capable of returning to the fight, one of the center's founders and now a consultant, George Zitnay, told The N&O. The center also develops new drugs, new rehabilitation strategies and new protective gear, all work that is vital to the troops and their families.

North Carolina's congressional delegation needs to hear that in no uncertain terms. If a $19 million budget can be justified, it deserves inclusion in a $439 billion defense budget.

Military discipline prohibits troops from making known their needs or publicly complaining. They shouldn't have to complain, in any case. A nation grateful for its freedom owes the troops a great debt for their sacrifices. It would be unconscionable to leave such a debt unpaid.