WASHINGTON, July 9 (UPI) -- Army hospitals treated 254 amputees from the Iraq war between March 2003 and May 2005, according to new statistics just released by the Army.
Nearly 19,000 soldiers have been medically evacuated from the war over the same period. There were 2,527 evacuated with battle injuries, 5,444 with non-battle injuries and 10,758 with disease.
More than 65 percent of the battle wounds - 1,644 -- were caused by explosions, including improvised explosive devices, landmines, grenades, and shrapnel. There were 395 gunshot wounds in that time period that required medical evacuation, and 217 injuries from rocket-propelled grenades.
Of the more than 10,000 "disease" evacuations, over 10 percent were suffering from psychiatric problems.
Disease affected a far higher proportion of Army soldiers assigned to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan over the same period. There were 1,046 soldiers medically evacuation from OEF, again with 10 percent reporting some kind of mental disorder.
There have been 122 soldiers wounded in action over that two-year period, and 408 non-battle injuries. About 60 percent were injured in explosions, 27 percent by gunshots, and 3 percent from vehicle bombs. Twenty-eight soldiers required amputations in Afghanistan war over that period.
However, the Afghan war began in 2001. The Army did not include statistics for Afghanistan prior to March 2003 in the report. The total number of wounded reported by the Defense Department for Operation Enduring Freedom since the war began in October 2001 was 182. The total number of deaths was 213, with 99 killed-in-action so far.
Total deaths in the Iraq war now total 1,752 with 1,348 killed in action.
