U.S. Casualty reports may be 17,000 short (UPI)

[mmonk]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000630846

[OKNancy]

1. Snip from article

NEW YORK (UPI) Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports commonly cited by newspapers, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. Most don't fit the definition of casualties, according to the Pentagon, but a veterans' advocate said they should all be counted.

The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245 wounded from Iraq.

The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Pentagon's public casualty reports, available at www.defenselink.mil, list only service members who died or were wounded in action. The Pentagon's own definition of a war casualty provided to UPI in December describes a casualty as, "Any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status/whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured."

[Just Me]

2. Wouldn't this be a stunning revelation to "the people"?

Oh, uh,...yeah,...there have been over 24,000 casualties but 17,000 were non-combat.

Uh huh.

[Iceburg]

3. Well that would give it a casulaty rate equal to the Vietnam and Korea

where 1 in 15, and 1 in 13 respectively were killed or wounded.

From the mouths of babes -- aired March 24, 2003 - 16:00 ET, CNN's Sneider and Woodroof discuss the current casualty rate and project what those numbers would be if they reach Vietnam rates.



http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/24/ip.00.html

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Consider U.S. wars over the past century. In World War I, the casualty rate was 1 in 15, that is 1 out of every 15 soldiers assigned to that war was either killed or wounded. World War II, exactly the same. One in 15 who served was killed or wounded. In the Korean War, the casualty rate was 1 in 13 American soldiers. In Vietnam, the figure was back up to 1 in 15. That is a remarkably steady casualty rate for very different wars fought in very different circumstances. The Persian Gulf war broke the pattern. In that war, the casualty rate was 1 in 1,500. Only 760 soldiers were killed or wounded out of more than 1 million who served in the Gulf.

What do Americans expect now in Iraq? Our polling shows they anticipate somewhere between 100 and 300 U.S. troops killed or wounded. That would be the same casualty rate as the Persian Gulf War, about 1 in 1,500. Is that an unreasonable expectation? After all, the U.S. is fighting another war on the same terrain against the same enemy as 12 years ago. An enemy that is weaker after 12 years of sanctions and a U.S. military with even greater technological prowess. But the Iraqi regime is fighting for its survival in the Iraqi homeland over territory much larger than Kuwait. Suppose the war in Iraq turns out to involve the kind of tough protracted ground movement the U.S. faced in two world wars, Korea and Vietnam, with the casualty rate comparable to those wars. How many casualties would be expected? The answer, about 17,000.

SCHNEIDER: Seventeen thousand is a number that almost no American expects. And in our polling, most Americans would not accept -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Very grim to think about, Bill.
-----------------------------------------------
My comment: ...back to you Judy.

[Divernan]

7. Bet the Gulf War numbers ignored the "Gulf War Syndrome"/depleted uranium

Starting with Vietnam and Agent Orange, and again in Iraq One, with depleted uranium, the VA/Pentagon has notoriously denied the existence of battle related injuries/illnesses which may take months or years to evidence themselves. Back in 1990, I had a secretary whose Vietnam vet husband had major, multiple helath problems which she believed were related to agent orange exposure - but the VA refused to admit him for treatment.

If you've read the medical reports on depleted uranium (soldiers handled shells coated with depleted uranium, or were in areas where shells had impaceted, you know that there are multiple, life-threatening long term impacts from this exposure. If it affects civilians living or working around it; it of course affects the military.

[UpInArms]

9. this shows the disconnect

between the lies and the truth.

thanks for the link

[Minstrel Boy]

11. Thanks for posting that.

Adds important, and forgotten, context.

[mbperrin]

4. Why, sure, the Pentagon is right. This CAN'T be combat-related!

"Among veterans from Iraq seeking help from the VA, 5,375 have been diagnosed with a mental problem, making it the third-leading diagnosis after bone problems and digestive problems. Among the mental problems were 800 soldiers who became psychotic."


Them boys wuz crazy fore they went! Now buy another fucking flag and support the troops, dammit!!!

[teryang]

5. Psychiatric casualties are severely underestimated

I don't have the links but have seen estimates from the Army itself that 17 percent of troops serving in Iraq are estimated to have some need of psychological therapy. They believe that therapy can be used to treat accute symptoms after exposure to combat and that soldiers can then be returned to combat duty. This may be true but whether the treatment is effective or not in a therapeutic sense is not scientifically proven.

Since most cases of chronic (long term) post traumatic stress disorder are delayed, they are characterized by denial or repression at the outset. Some of the symptoms such as hyper-alertness, startle response, difficulty sleeping, and even paranoia in severe cases actually serve the survival needs of the individual in a deadly environment. Later in a civil environment at home the ingrained behaviors are maladaptive and pathological in nature.

[DS1]

6. Stop being Airlift Girlie-Men and take your self-inflicted

bandaids back into combat!

/GOP

[tom_paine]

8. Of course it is! Did you think you lived in a Free Country?

Well, we did, before 12-12-2000.

Imperial Amerika lies like the Old Soviet Union, as ham-fistedly and as often, perhaps MORE (but what is more than 100% of the time?).

The actual number might be wrong, but you can rest assured tha both combat deaths and casualty figures are being held down by whatever unethical Orwellian means are necessary.

Welkom to Imperial Amerika, which more closely resembles Ferdinand Marcos Phillipines than the Old American Republic we grew up in.

[nibbana]

10. Hide the true casualties till the elections are over!!!

Where is the "liberal press on this?

[Minstrel Boy]

12. "What we hate is not casualties, but losing."'

"I think the level of casualties is secondary," American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael A. Ledeen told the gathering of war hawks. "I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war.... What we hate is not casualties, but losing."
http://www.the-ri.com/newsarchives.jsp?Start=630&Stop=640

[Karenina]

13. And THAT

is a "conservative" estimate.

[buycitgo]

14. nothing new there: McLaughlin group regularly lists

casualties (including mental) in the high twenty thousand range

he's been at least ten thousand above the usually broadcast numbers for a long time

[Bucky]

15. All injuries to troops are part of the hazards of war

Historically dying in non-combat situations, as with camp fever or military mishaps, was considered a lesser sacrifice than those who died from hostile fire. In the past two generations the military has started to grow up about this issue. They guys who get so stressed out in Iraq that they commit suicide are just as much a casualty of war as the guys hit by insurgent IEDs. The same rule should apply to the injured. If we sent you to Iraq to handle heavy equipment and then you break your leg moving that equipment around, by God you still got hurt serving your country and you deserve full recognition and a purple heart.

[maddogesq]

16. Move along citizens, nothing to see here.

That is, until after Nov. 2.

[nibbana]

18. Ignore the man behind the curtain..

Appears as if this yellow brick road is paved with GI's blood, by a top notch gold bricker...

[nibbana]

17. Right out of Nixons playbook..Iarq all good..Hurricane bad...

As marines die in the street George Bush fiddles...