Nearly 10,000 US personnel killed or injured (mostly seriously injured) in under 10 months. This effort is not sustainable.
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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1275
Update: 7,500 US Casualties Evacuated from Iraq War Zone to US
Esther Schrader Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-wounded9nov09,1,963909.story
Posted 11/10/2003 11:02:00 PM
November 10, 2003, Summary: With Veterans Day upon us, we should all pause and reflect on the carnage wrought in the US - Iraq War. Nearly 400 US soldiers are dead, and more than 7,500 have been medically evacuated. This means the total number of US casualties is nearly 8,000 in less than eight months ...
Hospital Front
With the number of amputees and burn victims from Iraq, the military's medical system is waging its own war. Washington, DC - The physical therapists on the fifth floor of Walter Reed Army Medical Center have a bulletin board they call their Wall of Heroes. It is crammed with photos of young soldiers in their care — soldiers wounded in the war in Iraq.
The images of the amputees and burn victims stand out, a tragic irony of an important advance in military protective gear.
The new armored vests that soldiers are wearing in this war protect the human torso and have saved countless lives, but often at a terrible price. One day last week, all but 20 of the 250 beds at the center were taken up with casualties of the war. Fifty of them have lost limbs, often more than one. Dozens more suffer burns and shrapnel wounds that begin where their armored vests ended.
On average, they are 23 years old.
Many would have died except for their Kevlar vests, which stopped rounds from a Kalashnikov rifle, a 9-millimeter handgun or fragments from a grenade. There have been more wounded — and over a longer period — than the hospital expected.
"We didn't start [the bulletin board] when the war began because we didn't have any idea," said Maj. Mary Hannah, a physical therapist. "Even the most experienced people here — it is beyond their imagining. These are our babies. And they just keep coming, coming, coming."
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full at link above
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