America's war wounded: between 35,000 and 53,000

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070623/ap_on_he_me/coming_home_wounded;_ylt=AmyPxpss6lS.NSbpQTNW8bms0NUE

Gov't struggles to cope with wounded GIs

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer 1 hour, 39 minutes ago

More than 800 of them have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and mangled minds.

These are America's war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.

More of them are coming home, with injuries of a scope and magnitude the government did not predict and is now struggling to treat.

"If we left Iraq tomorrow, we would have the legacy of all these people for many years to come," said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and an adviser to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. "The military simply wasn't prepared for its own success" at keeping severely wounded soldiers alive, he said.

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