VA and Amputees

Interesting story here on an advanced prosthetic arm--for two reasons. The first, is that it sounds like a real medical breakthrough.

Secondly, it reaffirms something I was recently told by a friend of mine who works for the VA. We were talking about the plight of service-members wounded in our ongoing wars and our obligation to help them. He then asked me if I knew how many "amputees" there were from Iraq and Afghanistan. I did some quick math, how many probably served, injury rates, news coverage, a sense of the situation.....and guessed 5000. Here's the answer, the same one he gave me:

"About 22 percent of the 820 American troops injured in Iraq or Afghanistan who have suffered major amputation have lost arms, while the comparable figure in Vietnam was only about 4 percent, according to Downs."

So, after almost eight years of this stuff, nearly constant combat, and more importantly, nearly constant news coverage of the rigors facing returned injured service members---THERE ARE ONLY 820 AMPUTEES! I'm glad of it, a true testament to the efforts of battlefield medics...but did any of you think the number was this low? I'm wondering if press coverage contributed a wee bit to my perception....