Wounded GIs in Afghanistan

Wounded GIs in Afghanistan: Casualties More Seriously Injured Than in Iraq
David Wood Columnist
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan -- They are the invisible casualties of this war, the 2,194 Americans who have been badly wounded in battle here. More are coming.
Stunned, torn and bleeding, they are extracted from dusty battlefields in wild, shouting chaos, and because they are so quickly rushed into the hands of trauma nurses and surgeons, more of them survive than in past wars.
But their wounds are often grievous, even more severe than those inflicted in the Iraq war. It is not uncommon for a casualty to arrive at a combat surgical hospital with two, three or even more immediately life-threatening injuries. Simultaneously drawn to the soldier's side will be specialists in setting broken bones, repairing deep abdominal wounds, attending to crushing chest injuries and cleaning the stumps of amputated limbs, while a neurologist works to assess brain damage.
The battle dead, deservedly, are venerated and honored by name. They are memorialized by their comrades in formal, intense, battlefield ceremony, honored as their remains are carried past rows of saluting troops onto waiting aircraft, and their sacrifices are sanctified again during and after their various journeys home. Their deaths are announced by the Pentagon and recorded on gravestones.
The wounded receive no such recognition. They are moved swiftly and anonymously; their names and sacrifices are not publicly recorded by the Department of Defense, which effectively bans interviews and photographs.
But as they are tenderly passed along -- from the combat medics who bandage them and the dust-off pilots who fly them away under fire, to the surgeons who perform emergency battle-zone surgery and the aero-medical evacuation pilots and crews who fly them toward home -- they are known and respected, honored, and treated with urgent compassion.
read more here
Wounded GIs in Afghanistan