Only ten percent of soldiers injured in Iraq have died from their war wounds. That's the lowest casualty fatality rate ever. By contrast, 24 percent of soldiers wounded in the Vietnam War or the Persian Gulf War did not survive.
Technological advances and the deployment of surgical SWAT teams at the front lines have made this low death rate possible. Traveling in Humvees with hand-held ultrasound machines, portable ventilators, supplies of red blood cells and an array of surgical tools and pharmaceuticals, the teams focus on stabilizing patients and moving them for further treatment in less than two hours.
But the remarkable lifesaving rate is creating a generation of severely wounded young veterans. The combination of body armor and new systems of battlefield medical care makes it possible for the wounded to survive injuries that were unsurvivable before.
In the rush to George W. Bush's war on Iraq we've not yet focused on how to rehabilitate, physically and emotionally, a human being who has suffered this kind of damage, and who may well have to cope with living out a normal lifespan without legs or arms or sight.
It used to be that the number of deaths reflected the violence of a war but now that number more accurately measures the efficiency of surgical teams.
New England Journal of Medicine - Notes of a Surgeon: Casualties of War
New England Journal of Medicine - Caring for the Wounded in Iraq -- A Photo Essay
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