Iraq: The Uncounted (Military Injuries)

[UpInArms]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/19/60minutes/main656756.shtml

excerpt:

How many injured and ill soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines - like Chris Schneider - are left off the Pentagon’s casualty count?

Would you believe 15,000? 60 Minutes asked the Department of Defense to grant us an interview. They declined. Instead, they sent a letter, which contains a figure not included in published casualty reports: "More than 15,000 troops with so-called 'non-battle' injuries and diseases have been evacuated from Iraq."

Many of those evacuated are brought to Landstuhl in Germany. Most cases are not life-threatening. In fact, some are not serious at all. But only 20 percent return to their units in Iraq. Among the 80 percent who don’t return are GIs who suffered crushing bone fractures; scores of spinal injuries; heart problems by the hundreds; and a slew of psychiatric cases. None of these are included in the casualty count, leaving the true human cost of the war something of a mystery.

<snip>

His two buddies were killed. Gomez made it out, but he's now paralyzed. " a horrific change. I can't move my legs. I can't move my arms," says Gomez. "It just totally changes your life in a manner that you could never imagine."

Even though Gomez tumbled into the Tigris while looking for insurgents, he is, by the Pentagon’s definition, “non-combat injured.”

...more...

[ogradda]

1. non-combat injured huh?

my daughter just popped out of her room to say "what?" i was cursing as i read that and didn't even realize it.

[southlandshari]

2. This was on Nightline last night

or was it the night before? Several DUers saw it - it was gut-wrenching.

[alittlelark]

3. I did not see it, and am on some level, glad I did not

The whole stinkin' hellhole is turning me psychotic.

[aneerkoinos]

4. Worse than I thought

"Non combat" casualties 15 000 - 20% returning = 12 000
WIA 10 000 - 20% = 8 000
Fatalities = 1000

That makes at least 21 000 (permanent) casualties, occupation troops are bleeding badly...

[Gary173]

5. Not only

do they not report total WIA and KIA, they don't care.

By David H. Hackworth

Donald Rumsfeld – who’s known as a people-eating systems man – has a long history that shows he prefers technology to humans. Certainly as SecDef he’s always gone for high-tech military gear rather than giving the boots on the ground max priority when it comes to the basics: armored vehicles and vests, sufficient ammo and all the other vital stuff that helps soldiers make it through the Valley of Death.


His beloved shock-and-awe whiz-bang wonder weapons worked well enough initially in Afghanistan and Iraq, but as we saw on the tube last week, we’re once again back to the age-old struggle of man against man – with grunts, not machines, taking and holding ground.

And now, apparently, Rumsfeld’s obsession with machines and their efficiency has translated into his using one to replace his own John Hancock on KIA (killed in action) letters to parents and spouses. Two Pentagon-based colonels, who’ve both insisted on anonymity to protect their careers, have indignantly reported that the SecDef has relinquished this sacred duty to a signature device rather than signing the sad documents himself.


When I went to Jim Turner, a good man saddled with a tough job as one of Rumsfeld’s flacks at the Pentagon, for a confirmation or a denial, he said, “Rumsfeld signs the letters himself.”

I then went to about a dozen next-of-kin of American soldiers KIA in Iraq. Most agreed with the colonels’ accusations and said they’d noticed and been insulted by the machine-driven signature. One father bitterly commented that he thought it was a shame that the SecDef could keep his squash schedule but not find the time to sign his dead son’s letter. Several also felt compelled to tell me that the letter they received from George Bush also looked as though it was not signed personally by the president.


Dr. Ted Smith, whose son Eric was among the first 100 killed in Iraq, notes that the letter he received “from the commander in chief was signed with a thick, green marking pen. I thought it was stamped then and do even now. He had time for golf and the ranch but not enough to sign a decent signature with a pen for his beloved hero soldiers. I was going to send the letter back but did not. I am sorry I didn’t.”


Sue Niederer, whose son Seth was also killed in Iraq, sums it up: “My son wasn’t a person to these people, he was just an entity to play their war game. But where are their children? Not one of them knows how any of us feel, and they obviously aren’t interested in finding out. None of them cares. And Rumsfeld depersonalizing his signature – it’s a slap in the face, don’t you think?”


Probably. I have devoted so much of my later life crusading to save soldiers from uncaring generals and politicians and bureaucrats, who tend so easily to view these kids – who are rarely their own flesh and blood – as abstract pawns in a virtual game of chess, because I was there. I stood and was counted, and I will never forget the pain when I signed KIA letters in Korea and Vietnam. I would choke up as I signed them – I could see the boys’ faces, their cocky smiles, their muddy soldier suits. Each signing reinforced the awesome responsibility I carried as a leader to be as protective as possible about the young lives entrusted to me.


After I talked with the nearest and dearest of the KIA, I called Turner back and told him there was evidence that Rumsfeld’s signature was in fact machine-produced. I asked him to double-check, and he promised to get me the straight skinny by my deadline. But late Friday I received a typical Pentagon duck-and-dodge e-mail: “Regret to say I have not been able to get a response as of COB (close of business) today .… ”


Throughout World War II, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall made sure that President Franklin Roosevelt was briefed in detail on the number of soldiers who had fallen. FDR, incidentally, probably wanted to know. He had sons who were serving.


I suspect that Sue Niederer and the other kin are on target about how not signing the KIA letters helps keep the commander in chief and the SecDef detached from the consequences of a nasty war and its messy human fall-out.