by James Glaser
November 23, 2004

It seems like the major papers and the nightly news shows never tell us much about how many Americans are getting wounded in Iraq. Also, we never ever hear anything about wounded Iraqis.

If we can kill way over a thousand Iraqis in our attack on Fallujah, and only suffer fifty some American killed, does that mean that for every American wounded, there are about twenty plus Iraqis wounded? If that is true, then we have wounded something in the order of 180,000 Iraqis. That is based on the fact that we have had about 9,000 Americans wounded in combat ... so far. We don't know how many Iraqis have been wounded, but then we don't even count the number we kill, so that is no surprise.

Those are the wounded ones. According to hospital reports about 17,000 Americans have been evacuated from Iraq. The larger number is because those with physical illness, accidents, or mental stress were moved from Iraq too.

This last Friday Walter Reed Army Hospital near our Nation's Capital stopped accepting some of their ambulance patients because the hospital is almost full with the added wounded coming from Iraq. Like Walter Reed, Bethesda Navy Hospital is getting 20 to 30 wounded on any given day.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch writes, "Nearly every night, convoys of ambulances and buses back up to the rear ramp of a transport plane to pick up injured troops arriving from Landstuhl, where casualties are initially treated after leaving Iraq."

Lt. Paula Godes, a Navy physical therapist told the Times, "This week has been very intense." "It's a somber experience," she said. "You see first hand the result of war. You try to be as strong as you can for these guys."

I think it would do the American people some good to see what is really happening to our troops over in Iraq and to understand what fine medical facilities we have for them. Then every American could think about what happens to all of the Iraqis who are also getting wounded. Those people, many who are children, don't get the kind of care our troops get. Many of them don't even get pain medication.

Wars are tough and you expect soldiers to get killed and wounded and that is hard. What is also hard is the fact that our government hides all of this blood and gore, suffering and heart ache from the American people. These Veterans deserve to have their sacrifices known to the whole country.

America and those in Washington might think a little harder and plan an exit strategy if we all realized what really happens when we start a war.