Military personnel who have suffered brain injuries deserve all the attention necessary, and with the latest treatment innovations, to help them recover to the fullest extent possible.

Therefore, Congress should have no reluctance to provide funding for a pilot clinic for such wounded veterans that is proposed for Western Pennsylvania.

Dr. George Zitnay, who co-founded the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in 1992, wants to establish the clinic near Johnstown in Cambria County — about 80 miles southeast of Butler.

Regardless of where it would be located, it is to be hoped that the work and research at the clinic would result in findings, accomplishments and knowledge that also could eventually benefit members of the civilian population — such as people who have suffered brain injuries in traffic accidents.

"What I'm proposing is a state-of-the-art center with enhanced rehabilitation," Zitnay told a Johnstown newspaper. "We'll bring them in for six months to a year to see if we can rouse them."

According to Zitnay, brain-injured veterans placed in a typical nursing home aren't accorded any active treatment.

"Those guys can spend the next 40 years in hell," he said.

Zitnay was in Washington the other day to present his proposal to federal lawmakers. Hopefully they will make it possible for him to move forward with his plan as expeditiously as possible.

With no end in sight to America's military involvement in Iraq, it is a certainty that more service personnel will join the ranks of those who already need the kind of care Zitnay envisions.

Zitnay's plan is a proposal that deserves unanimous backing by Congress and quick concurrence by President George W. Bush.

The fact that the clinic, as proposed, would be in the legislative district of Rep. John P. Murtha, who is at odds with the president over the war, must not be a barrier to obtaining the president's support.

The site of the clinic isn't important; what's important is that it be allowed to be established, to work on behalf of individuals whose current plight is a result of their patriotic service to this nation.