The Price We Pay

The media rarely report the numbers anymore, so let it be me who does.

According to the Department of Defense, as of August 3, 2005, the total number of military deaths in Iraq is 1,816. The number of wounded is 13,769, of whom approximately half (6,661) had wounds that did not permit them to be returned to duty within 72 hours. [link]

Of course, numbers don't really tell the whole story. For that, I recommend an article that was published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, which describes in detail how injured soldiers are treated, and the issues that treatment raises. The article also describes a bi-weekly conference call between surgeons at Walter Reed Medical Center and surgeons in Iraq, in which they review cases over the past two weeks. The excerpted description below is from the biweekly summary on October 21, 2004, but gives an idea of what the injury statistics alone blandly obscure. [If you're squeamish, you might want to skip to the bottom].

Every other Thursday, surgeons at Walter Reed hold War Rounds by telephone conference with surgeons in Baghdad to review the American casualties received in Washington during the previous two weeks. The case list from October 21 provides a picture of the extent of the injuries. There was one gunshot wound, one antitank-mine injury, one grenade injury, three rocket-propelled–grenade injuries, four mortar injuries, eight IED injuries, and seven patients with no cause of injury noted. The least seriously wounded of these patients was a 19-year-old who had sustained soft-tissue injuries to the face and neck from a mine and required an exploration of the left side of the neck. Other cases involved a partial hand amputation; a hip disarticulation on the right, through-knee amputation on the left, and open pelvic débridement; a left nephrectomy and colostomy; an axillary artery and vein reconstruction; and a splenectomy, with repair of a degloving scalp laceration and through-and-through tongue laceration. None of the soldiers were more than 25 years of age. [link]

If you ask me, the last line of the quote says it all.