Wounded Iraq, Afghanistan Troops Increase As Pentagon Says Afghan War Will Continue

[pinboy3niner]

By David Wood
Posted: 12/10/2012 5:07 pm EST




WASHINGTON -- In a grim marker of the human cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Pentagon reported Monday that active-duty American troops were hospitalized in the United States at three times the peacetime rate -- with mental health injuries comprising the largest category.

The new report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center said that 891,903 troops were hospitalized from October 2001 to June 2012. These patients drove the stateside hospital bed occupancy rate up to 4.2 million days, almost four times the normal peacetime rate, a number that reflects the serious nature of the patients' physical and mental wounds.

Among the 891,903 hospitalizations recorded during the wartime period, 153,936 were for physical injuries and 161,385 were for mental health diagnoses. The report also documented 1.7 million ambulatory visits to military health facilities for mental disorders.

...


More than 50,000 Americans have been wounded in battle since October 2001 in Afghanistan or Iraq, according to Pentagon data updated Monday. Many of them have been severely wounded, as detailed in a 2011 Huffington Post series, Beyond the Battlefield.

...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/wounded-troops-iraq-afghanistan_n_2272619.html

[mike_c]

1. what the fuck is the U.S. still doing in Afghanistan...?

Not enough other outlets for exporting military violence against poor people? Haven't fully secured access to their natural resources yet? Perhaps this just isn't a good time for economic downturn in the military industrial complex?

[unhappycamper]

2. This is Vietnam, part duex.

We all lose.