Pentagon not listing 17,000 war casualties

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> DARocksMom

> Thu, 16 Sep 2004 05:37:13 EDT

> Pentagon not listing 17,000 war casualties

 

>

>

http://about.upi.com/products/perspectives/UPI-20040915-021124-6165R

>

> Pentagon not listing 17,000 war casualties

>

> By MARK BENJAMIN, United Press International

>

> WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Nearly 17,000

> service members medically

> evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from

> public Pentagon casualty

> reports, though they appear to fit the Pentagon's

> own definition of war casualties,

> according to military data reviewed by United Press

> International.

> In addition to those evacuations, 32,684 veterans

> from Iraq and Afghanistan

> now out of the military sought medical attention

> from the Department of

> Veterans Affairs by July 22, according to VA reports

> obtained by UPI. The number of

> those visits to VA doctors that were related to war

> is unknown.

> The military has evacuated 16,765 individual

> service members from Iraq and

> Afghanistan for injuries and illnesses not directly

> related to combat,

> according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which

> is responsible for the medical

> evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

> But the Pentagon's public casualty reports,

> available at

> www.defenselink.mil, list only service members who

> died or were wounded in action, even though

> the Pentagon's own definition of a war casualty is:

> " Any person who is lost to

> the organization by having been declared dead, duty

> status - whereabouts

> unknown, missing, ill, or injured. "

> The Pentagon casualty reports do list soldiers who

> died in non-combat related

> incidents or from illness. But service members

> injured or sick from the same

> non-combat causes -- the majority that appear to be

> " lost to the organization "

> -- are not reflected in those Pentagon reports.

> A veterans' advocate said the Pentagon should make

> a full reporting of the

> casualties, including non-combat injures that fit

> the Pentagon casualty

> definition. " They are still casualties of war, " said

> Mike Schlee, director of the

> National Security and Foreign Relations Division at

> the American Legion. " I

> think we have to have an honest disclosure of what

> the short- and long-term

> casualties of any conflict are. "

> Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner did not respond

> Wednesday to a request for

> comment. In the past, he has told UPI that the

> Pentagon does not keep non-combat

> casualty statistics. He has also said that Pentagon

> casualty reports show

> data on war wounds because that is what most

> interests the media.

> A spokesman for the transportation command said

> that without orders from

> U.S. Central Command, his unit would not separate

> the medical evacuation data to

> show how many came from Iraq and Afghanistan. " We

> stay in our lane, " said Lt.

> Col. Scott Ross. But most are clearly from Operation

> Iraqi Freedom where

> several times as many troops are deployed as in

> Afghanistan.

> The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245

> wounded from Iraq. And

> 27,571 of the veterans who have sought health care

> from the VA served in Iraq,

> according to the documents reviewed by UPI.

> Among veterans from Iraq seeking help from the VA,

> 5,375 have been

> diagnosed with a mental problem, making it the

> third-leading diagnosis after bone

> problems and digestive problems. Among the mental

> problems were 800 soldiers who

> became psychotic.

> A military study published in the New England

> Journal of Medicine in July

> showed that 16 percent of soldiers returning from

> Iraq might suffer major

> depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic

> stress disorder. Around 11

> percent of soldiers returning from Afghanistan may

> have the same problems,

> according to that study.

>

>

>

> --

> Copyright 2004 by United Press International.

> All rights reserved.

> --

>