15,220 also wounded, but medical advances helped them survive

WASHINGTON — The human toll for the U.S. military in the Iraq war is not limited to the 2,000 deaths since the March 2003 invasion. More than 15,220 also have been wounded in combat, including more than 7,100 injured too badly to return to duty, the Pentagon said. Thousands more have been hurt in incidents unrelated to combat.

Military doctors say U.S. troops are surviving wounds in Iraq that would have been fatal in previous wars due to advances in medical care and body armor.

Military statistics showed that while 23 percent of U.S. troops wounded in combat in World War II and 17 percent in the Vietnam War died, 9 percent of those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan died. Without the advances since Vietnam, the U.S. death toll in Iraq would be nearly double the current total.

Improved rates of survival also mean there are more amputees coming home.

"We look at patients oftentimes and feel like it's a miracle that they're alive," said Lt. Col. Paul Pasquina, chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which has treated more than 4,400 troops hurt in Iraq.

Pasquina and Lt. Col. Warren Dorlac, chief of trauma surgery and critical care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, cited several factors for why a larger percentage of wounded U.S. troops were surviving:

• advances in body armor, with torso armor better protecting the chest and abdomen, heart and lungs and helmets better protecting the brain;

• better-trained and prepared battlefield medics;

• improved in-country surgical capabilities.

Moving patients to U.S. hospitals usually took 45 days during the Vietnam War, but now takes as little as 36 hours. Most troops flown out of Iraq are then treated at Landstuhl before being sent along to facilities in the United States, including Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas or Walter Reed.

While hard data aren't available on the number of amputees, the issue has led to a boom in development of advanced prosthetics in the U.S., most funded by the Army. Amputees are now being fitted with artificial legs that have computer chips that ease movement and develop a sort of artificial "muscle-memory."