Chronology of U.S. Military Fatalities Since 'Mission Accomplished,'

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0412/harkavy.php

Day by Day, Death by Death
by Ward Harkavy
March 23rd, 2004 1:30 PM

To the Bush administration's more ardent partisans, the death toll in Iraq is merely something to "be aware of," as one recently put it in a communiqué from Baghdad—an acceptable trade of human lives for regime change.

The United States has lost nearly 600 military personnel since the war began, a year ago last week. Of those, at least 437 have died since May 1, when President Bush landed on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and, under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished," declared major combat over. Some note that the list of names is roughly equivalent to what U.S. forces racked up in their first eight years in Vietnam, 1957-1964. But of those 401 deaths, 324 occurred in the final two years.

Perhaps the more meaningful way to examine the death toll is in the context of what military personnel and their families are saying about the violence in Iraq, where as many as 10,700 civilians and 600-plus Iraqi policemen—recruited after the fall of Saddam—have died. U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq note that everything from their own convoy security to contractor support to basic equipment—from socks to body armor and, as The Wall Street Journal showed last week, vehicles—has been lacking.

Military reformers wonder if the fact that young officers are being promoted faster—but with less training than ever—might be a factor in the number of post-Saddam deaths. They wonder if the military, the army in particular, will dispense with its techno fetish and get serious again about the human dimensions of combat. Many of the casualties have come from National Guard and reserve units, and observers express anger at the lack of training and equipment, especially for operations that essentially amount to urban counter-insurgency.
..more..

[jmcgowanjm]

1. Now look at this from lunavilleblog

1st Lt. Michael W. Vega, 41, of Lathrop, Calif., died
March 20 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in
Washington, D.C., from injuries sustained when his
military vehicle rolled over in Diwaniyah, Iraq, on
March 11.

SF Chronicle sheds a little more light on the "accident":

"Lt. Michael Vega, 41, a gung-ho reservist from
Lathrop (San Joaquin County) who grew up in Vallejo
and loved to take his girlfriend out dancing, died in a Washington, D.C., hospital of injuries he suffered nine
days earlier in a humvee accident while under attack in
the town of Diwaniya. The vehicle overturned while Vega
was perched on top, operating a machine gun and
returning enemy fire."

And then look at VV's Casualty list dates:
Do you think Lt. Vega will make March 20
casualty list?

Will Lt. Vega receive a posthumous Purple Heart?


 

[jmcgowanjm]

2. Director- Deployed Warrior Medical Management Center/Landstuhl

Lt. Col. Richard Jordan, a physician, who directs the
Deployed Warrior Medical Management Center at
Landstuhl, oversees the coordination of all medical
evacuations from the Middle East. I interviewed him
in his hospital office on Feb. 5 and he told me the
following:

“Since the first plane arrived from Iraq on March 16,
2003, we have evacuated 11,400
As of September 16, Landstuhl had treated approximately
6,000 service members from Operation Iraqi
Freedom. AsiaTimes

As of mid-month 2,830 patients from the Iraq war have
been treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington, 500 of them battle casualties. VillageVoice

Ms. Shaw, the Belgian-born civilian spokeswoman for
LRMC, confirmed that 90 percent of the U.S. personnel evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan had been sent
to the United States for further treatment.

this number, 1,590 were wounded in hostile action, and
337 from other causes. About 20% of the injured in Iraq
have suffered severe brain injuries, and as many as
70% "had the potential for resulting in brain injury,"
according to an Oct. 16 article in The Boston Globe. E&P

According to an Oct. 3 report by UPI, nearly 4,000 soldiers
had been medically evacuated from Iraq for non-combat reasons. EditorPublisher

Regarding the discrepancy of some 8,000 casualties,
Ms. Shaw told AFP that one should compare the
hospitalization rates of a population the size of the
deployment “downstream” with a city of similar size
in the United States. AFP

A recent straw poll done by National Public Radio
found that the American public had no idea how
many U.S. military personnel had been wounded
in Iraq and Afghanistan. AFP

For Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes all
the countries other than Iraq where the “war on terror”
is being waged—from Arabia and Uzbekistan to the Philippines—the Pentagon has released a figure of
107 dead. These Pentagon statistics did not include
the wounded

Lt. Col. Jordan said Landstuhl had received 11,400 from Iraq, while the Pentagon has only reported a total of 2,996 U.S. wounded in the occupation of Iraq AFP

February statistics from the Deployed Warrior Medical Management Center show that 11,652 soldiers from
Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom have been
treated at Landstuhl. Of these, only 1,232—roughly
one in 10—returned to duty; 10,420 required further
medical treatment.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/02_10_04/Pentagon_Cooking/pentagon_cooking.html
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2008146
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ02Ak01.html

[jmcgowanjm]

3. About 20% of the injured in Iraq have suffered severe brain injuries

I wonder if these guys have been charged for their
meals while in hospital.

Wounded Soldiers May Be Billed Again for Hospital Meals
March 24 - 30, 2004

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0412/mondo3.php

[G_j]

4. kick

[peace4all]

5. kick