WP: Iraq Combat Fatality Rate Lowest Ever (Also Shortage of Surgeons)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49566-2004Dec8?language=printer

Ten percent of soldiers injured in Iraq have died from their war wounds, the lowest casualty fatality rate ever, thanks in large part to technological advances and the deployment of surgical SWAT teams at the front lines, an analysis to be published today has found.

But the remarkable lifesaving rate has come at the enormous cost of creating a generation of severely wounded young veterans and a severe shortage of military surgeons, wrote Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The war in Iraq has produced the "largest burden of casualties our military medical personnel have had to cope with since the Vietnam War," said Gawande's report in the New England Journal of Medicine. By contrast, 24 percent of soldiers wounded in the Vietnam War or the Persian Gulf War did not survive.

"It used to be our thinking that the number of deaths reflects the violence of the war," Gawande said in an interview. "Now, the number of deaths reflects how well surgical teams are doing in saving lives."

<snip>

With just 120 general surgeons on active duty in the Army and a similar number in the reserves, Gawande argued the teams are overextended and operating in far more dangerous circumstances.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. How nice.

They survived. They should be grateful to be alive; so what if they have to do without a few limbs? Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy all over.

[knowbody0]

2. some can't walk, some can no longer tie their shoes

lots don't see any more, and others cannot think. a few no longer have faces.
there are legless vets living in their cars, and showing up at homeless shelters.

[Seldona]

23. MoveOn.org or some such organization

should be making ads with these soldiers.

And connecting them with help.

It is infuriating to know that these people gave their bodies to supposedly protect us, and then are disgaurded while *Bush spends unprecidented amounts on this farce.

People have to see this, stare at it.

What a travesty!

:grr:

[bluestateguy]

3. When a war is wrong, one casualty is one too many

This is one of those stories meant to satisfy the people who whine "why doesn't the media talk about all the good things in Iraq...WAAAAAAAH!" Well, here's a bone, now take it and shut up.

[Mr_Spock]

4. Dumbya is a bloodthirsty lying mass-murdering anti-Christ psychopath

God will look him in the eye before he hands him over to Satan "No hope for you"

[KingChicken]

5. Don't forget the psychological problems

I get screwed up just looking at some of those pictures showing burnt up bodies and children with large parts of their body missing. Hearing the stories about what the large cal. ammo does to people makes me sick.

Just think how a front line soldier can cope with these images, think about how you come home to your own children knowing that thousands of Iraqi parents have lost theirs, often in a horrible way.

The troops will be the last to admit that they are having psychological problems, most of them don't even realize it themselves because of the denial, boys don't cry...

The truth is that almost every frontline soldier coming back from combat will have at the very least a post-stress/post-trauma related psychological problem either temporary (6 months or less) or chronic. Some of them will eventually commit suicide, sometimes it can take years for it to catch up with them, just like with Vietnam.

[matt819]

6. Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Or however that goes.

It's interesting to see the number of articles turning up in recent days with statistical analyses of casualties -- deaths categorized every which way, injuries, relative to number of troops, attempting to compare to circumstances in previous wars, etc.

For example, one article I saw today noted that if medical care were at the same level as in WWII and Vietnam, there would be closer to 3,500 deaths. (Though, as this post indicates, that could change soon.) In any case, the same article observed, fairly, that numbers on casualties are hard to come by, and I suspect, as do many here, that the quality of life of survivors (both medically and economically) is going to be far worse than in previous wars because the injuries are more severe, I think, and our economy is appalling.

One study I haven't seen is comparing the casualties (deaths and injuries) in this travesty to casualties in Vietnam, for example, at the same point in the conflict. Sure, we don't have anywhere near 55,000 deaths in Iraq (yet), but we didn't have 55,000 deaths in Vietnam a year into that debacle. How many did we have?

However you parse the numbers, there are more and more dead soldiers, and for what? I know that no one wants to believe that their loved ones died in vain. But is there any other conclusion?

[LynnTheDem]

15. It took 6 years in Vietnam to reach 500 US dead

U.S. Deaths from Enemy Fire at Highest Level Since Vietnam

The Vietnam War started with a slower death rate. The United States had been involved in Vietnam for six years before total fatalities surpassed 500 in 1965

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0417-02.htm

US War Dead in Iraq Exceeds Early Vietnam Years

The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War, the brutal Cold War conflict that cast a shadow over U.S. affairs for more than a generation.

A Reuters analysis of Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964 ... in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/111503B.shtml

Some people (including all rightwingnuts) like to point out there were LESS TROOPS in Vietnam until 1965, so one can't compare death rates between Nam and Iraq. But we now have FAR BETTER technology medically and better body armor, both of which keeps permanently destroyed American men, women & teenagers alive (so to speak) who would have died during the Vietnam war era.

Plus LESS TROOPS should equal MORE DEATHS, not less. And MORE TROOPS should equal LESS DEATHS, not more. Troops are safer when there are more of them, not when there's less of them.

Vietnam went on for over a decade; Iraq isn't even 2 years yet; GIVE IT TIME. At the end of a decade let's count total US dead between Iraq and Nam, then we can listen to the rightwingnuts (and some "progressives") marginalize their deaths by comparing to World War II.

First 21 months:



First 4 years:

[TomClash]

16. 1965

By the end of that year there were a little over 2,000 deaths, 1,861 in '65 alone.

If there is a comparison Iraq 2004 looks a bit like Vietnam 1965.

[sidpleasant]

19. Cooking the books

From the same WP article:

During the Vietnam War, it took injured soldiers an average of 45 days to reach a hospital in the United States. At the beginning of the Iraq war, the average was eight days, and now it is four. One airman hit by a mortar attack in September "was on the operating table at Walter Reed" Army Medical Center here "just 36 hours later," Gawande said.

I remember an article earlier this year that said that the Pentagon didn't count a soldier as killed in Iraq if he died of his injuries outside that country. In some cases severely brain - damaged soldiers were kept "alive" on ventilators long enough to get them out of Iraq so they wouldn't add to the death toll. We really have no idea what the real casualty count is.

[Strelnikov_]

7. I Wonder If The Nature Of The Conflict Is Skewing The Numbers

Since we are facing an insurgency, once soldiers are injured, generally the area is rapidly secured and the injured evacuated, allowing for treatment to be initiated during the golden hour.

In more traditional 'war', enemy action often prevents evacuation of the injured.

[NYC]

8. Johnny Got His Gun

by Dalton Trumbo. Interesting book.

[Erika]

9. I read the book....many years ago

I've got it in my library. We have depression right now from such actions.

[NYC]

11. Don't reread it.

Although the Trumbo example was very extreme, I have a feeling we are somewhat in the same situation now. People are not dying because medical technology has improved, yet they are not capable of living.

[burrowowl]

12. The movie was very well done

Many of the wounded, brain wise are about in the same situation.

[NYC]

13. I didn't know there was a movie.

The book was depressing. Is the movie equally depressing?

[burrowowl]

22. It makes one think

look at the book and the movie as something everyone should read and/or see to give them a better idea of war and maybe people kept on life support too long.

[RamboLiberal]

10. BTW LA Times has an article on the shortage of surgeons

DU thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1056166

[daleo]

14. Draft of medical personnel coming up?

"But the remarkable lifesaving rate has come at the enormous cost of creating a generation of severely wounded young veterans and a severe shortage of military surgeons, wrote Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston."

[llmart]

17. Way to put a nice spin on a terrible situtation.....

Washington Post. This should make all the injured and the families of the dead feel sooooooo much better.

Stupid whoring media.

[NNN0LHI]

18. The Iraqis don't necessarily want to kill our soldiers

They want them out of their country. Dead or wounded does not matter to them. For these soldiers the war is effectively over. They won't be going back to Iraq.

Don

[RamboLiberal]

20. LAT article on shortage on surgeons

Completely different article that got locked.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-120804c...

A severe shortage of surgeons in Iraq has left U.S. Army medical teams in the country scrambling to handle the largest number of casualties since the Vietnam War, the New England Journal of Medicine will report Thursday.

Despite the numbers — the Army has fewer than 50 general surgeons and 15 orthopedic surgeons in Iraq at any one time — advances in battlefield surgical techniques and care mean a greater percentage of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are surviving their injuries than in any previous American conflict.

<snip>

Blast injuries from suicide bombs and land mines are up substantially in recent months and have proved particularly difficult to treat without risking infection, Gawande writes. Eye injuries have caused blindness among a dismaying number of soldiers. And Kevlar body armor, which early in the war proved dramatically effective in preventing torso injuries, provides inadequate protection against bomb blasts.

<snip>

With just 120 general surgeons on active duty, the Army has been forced to use urologists, plastic surgeons and cardiothoracic surgeons to conduct general surgery on soldiers in Iraq. Many surgeons have been deployed for more than two years in Iraq, and military planners are contemplating pressing some to return again, Gawande writes.

<snip>

With no clear directive from the Pentagon on treating civilians, some doctors refuse to help even pediatric patients, for fear the children could be booby-trapped with bombs, Gawande writes.

[Tempest]

21. Amputations twice the rate of WWI and WWII

In July, amputee program manager Chuck Scoville of Walter Reed told a congressional committee that amputations accounted for 2.4 percent of all wounded in action in the Iraq war — twice the rate in World Wars I and II.

http://news.orb6.com/stories/ap/20041016/amputee_re_enlistment.php