How many U.S. soldiers were wounded in Iraq? We have no idea!

Niemanwatchdog.org

The true number of military personnel injured in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you just go a bit beyond the Pentagon's narrowly-tailored definition of 'wounded in action'. So why isn't anyone keeping track?

Reports about the end of the war in Iraq routinely describe the toll on the U.S. military the way the Pentagon does: 4,487 dead, and 32,226 wounded.

The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole.

The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands -- maybe even more than half a million -- if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems.

We don't have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody's been keeping track.

The much-cited Defense Department figure comes from its tally of "wounded in action" -- a narrowly-tailored category that only includes casualties during combat operations who have "incurred an injury due to an external agent or cause."

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