The headline is a little misleading (what a surprise!) since the hospital is treating military personnel from both Afghanistan and Iraq...
Iraq Keeps U.S. Hospital in Germany Busy<
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GERMANY_MILITARY_HOSPITAL?SITE=ALMOP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT>
"LANDSTUHL, Germany (AP) -- Major combat in Iraq has been declared over for nearly six months, but there's been no letup for the staff at the U.S. military's largest overseas hospital.
With American troops under near daily attack in Iraq, workers at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center are still putting in 60-hour weeks caring for wounded and ill soldiers - as well as troops stationed in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Germany.
Since President Bush declared the major fighting in Iraq over on May 1, two-thirds of the additional staff brought in for the war remain in place, and the
average of 44 new patients a day is nearly three times the peacetime level.'I can't tell the difference between combat and post-combat,' said medical director Lt. Col. Richard Jordan, looking over rows of trailers providing temporary housing for the extra 600 doctors and nurses called in to handle casualties from the war."...snip...
"The hospital has treated 1,800 patients so far from the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and more than 7,100 from the Iraq mission.Since military operations in Iraq started on March 20,
336 U.S. service members have died, according to the Department of Defense. More than 1,500 have been wounded in hostile action."
QUESTIONS:
1) How many of the 44 new patients a day as referenced above are the result of combat? 30%? 40%? 50%?? That's a total of 308 new patients per week, and more than 1300 per month. How many are coming from Afghanistan alone?
2) If we've suffered 1,800 killed or wounded in Iraq according to the official numbers, are they trying to tell us that the remaining 5,000+ patients are sick or injured from non-combat situations? I thought all of those vaccines were supposed to keep our guys from getting sick...what am I missing here?
3) How many of the 1,800 patients from the Afghan mission are actually wounded as opposed to sick or injured from non-combat actions? How many have been killed in combat or by other means?