There have been a quite a few reports in the news the past day on the higher survival rate of US soldiers due to superior body armor and trauma care based on the report in the New England Journal of Medicine, Casualties of War — Military Care for the Wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan
Each Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Defense provides an online update of American military casualties (the number of wounded or dead) from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.1 According to this update, as of November 16, 2004, a total of 10,726 service members had suffered war injuries. Of these, 1361 died, 1004 of them killed in action; 5174 were wounded in action and could not return to duty; and 4191 were less severely wounded and returned to duty within 72 hours. No reliable estimates of the number of Iraqis, Afghanis, or American civilians injured are available. Nonetheless, these figures represent, by a considerable margin, the largest burden of casualties our military medical personnel have had to cope with since the Vietnam War.
Read the rest here. The accompanying pictures, Caring for the Wounded in Iraq — A Photo Essay,(warning…they are very graphic) are also available here.
UPDATE: Here’s an interesting point made in an email to me from AntiWar reader Jim Jensen:
I think mention should be made that the New England Journal article made three important observations. The first was that fewer soldiers are now dying. The second is relative to the first observation: More soldiers are left wounded than before. Third, homicide rates in the U.S. have been dramatically reduced. The NEJ says that all of these items are a direct result of the advanced made in medicine over the years, something that I don’t think is being stated in the mainstream press.