Battlefield: Death Isn’t the Only Measure

Veteran combat doc turned author finds death isn’t the only measure of risk on the battlefield.


August 25, 2011 - The human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are high – and hidden, due to advances in combat medicine, and this masks the ferocity of these conflicts. In "Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds: A Medical Odyssey from Vietnam to Afghanistan" (History Publishing, June 2011), Ronald Glasser quotes one army nurse in Baghdad: “We’re saving the really severely injured, legs gone, blinded, deaf, parts of brains destroyed. You may go home, but you won’t be the same as when you left.” As Glasser writes, “Those [soldiers] now number in the tens of thousands.”


So the overt cost of war, the death toll, would be much greater if not for new medical developments that enable the “low” fatality statistics to hide the brutality of these struggles. The signature wounds are traumatic brain injuries and multiple amputations, which occur because our soldiers are being blown up by Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs]. Such wounds would once have been fatal, but not anymore, thanks to surgical advances and the transformation of combat medicine. “We have been lulled by our own successes in simply keeping our troops alive – as if death is the only measure of risks on the battlefield,” Glasser writes. “Despite the growing sophistication of our battlefield medicine and the new body armor, the orthopedic wards at Walter Reed are… filled with numbers of amputees not seen since the Civil War.” 


WE HAVE BEEN LULLED BY OUR OWN SUCCESSES IN SIMPLY KEEPING OUR TROOPS ALIVE.
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