Lefterer.com ~ 16723. While we often hear the stat of how many soldiers were killed in Iraq (1547 as of today), we hardly hear of how many have been terribly injured. Check the link from Lefterer on the total number of medical evacuations from Iraq (16,723), many of whom were undoubtedly combat injuries, but reclassified due to technicalities or political pressure.

Here’s one of the saddest set of statistics:

Numbers of amputees

These numbers represent persons treated in Army hospitals. They represent numbers of persons sustaining the loss of hands, feet, arms and/or legs; they do not include the loss of fingers and/or toes.

• 160 Army soldiers, 24 of whom are multiple amputees
• 45 Marines, 6 of whom are multiple amputees
• 4 Navy sailors, 0 of whom are multiple amputees
• 2 Air Force amputees, 1 of whom is a multiple amputee

Total of 211 service member amputees treated in Army hospitals

When we were talking about gasoline costing an arm and a leg, we were only kidding. I suppose it’s not that funny for these guys…