11,000 evacuees thru Andrews in last 9 months???

[Mari333]

Evidently in Europe they KNOW more about whats happening at Andrews AF base then WE know! They even put it on their NEWS!! THIS MAKES ME SO MAD DEMAND THAT OUR ARRIVING SOLDIERS AND COFFINS BE PUT ON THE NEWS FROM EVERY MEDIA OUTLET THERE IS

edit to get post from Guardian forums.
will post asap.

[AZCat]

1. That'd be about, uh... 4 X what we've been told

I've been seeing numbers around 2500- what would the distinction be?
I know the Bush Admin has been covering the actual casualty numbers up, but how are they differentiating between the two groups?

[Soloflecks]

6. How they downplay casualties.

"Three US soldiers were killed last week, bringing the number of combat dead since hostilities in Iraq were declared officially over on 1 May to 68. A similar number have died in accidents. It is military police policy to announce that a soldier has been wounded only if they were involved in an incident that involved a death."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1041822,00.html

YellowTimes.org) – Media outlets have been spinning the information on U.S. casualties in a most curious way. Instead of regularly updating viewers and listeners concerning the number of killed and injured U.S. servicemen and women since the beginning of the war in Iraq, an insidious and disingenuous distinction is being emphasized more than ever: that of the "combat deaths" and the "non-combat deaths." Phrases like "hostile fire," "friendly fire," and "in-action deaths" are now commonplace in Washington's and the media's handbook of propaganda and euphemisms.

News agencies are constantly making the above distinction, reporting the number of U.S. soldiers killed by "hostile fire" as well as those killed in other ways but only keeping a running tabulation of those who have lost their lives in combat. Updates are almost unheard of regarding the number of casualties resulting from non-fatal injuries.
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1496

[latebloomer]

2. I saw the 11,000 figure yesterday

in a horrendous NY Times magazine article about the physically and emotionally damaged men and women coming back from there.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. According to Lunaville.org...

3040 wounded total. Not saying Lunaville.org is the final arbiter on casualty counts, but they reflect what's been counted by the DoD. If the DoD count is 8,000 off, can you imagine how far off the fatality count is??? :grr:

[htuttle]

4. The evacuees in that 11,000 number are not all considered 'wounded'

A few months ago, the DoD themselves released a similar sized number, ie,. that about 11,000 to 12,000 troops have been evacuated for various medical reasons.

The DoD mentioned this number several months ago (can't find the link at the moment, but I probably could if pressed on it) in the course of an official briefing, IIRC.

Other than the 3000-4000 considered wounded, the Pentagon mentioned a lot of other medical evacuations were for disease, mental ilness, and a few score pregnancies.

So the 11,000 number is really pretty solid, it's just not talked about a lot (ie., that we lost the equivalent of an ENTIRE DIVISION to this escapade so far).

[latebloomer]

5. OK, you made me stir my lazy ass

and go downstairs to fetch the NY Times.

I was wrong. Says in the article that the DOD in early Feb listed 2600 as wounded in action in Iraq and another 403 injured in "nonhostile" accidents. However, the Army Surgeon General's figures said that only 804 were evacuated with battle wounds, and another 5,184 evacuated for other medical resosns-- 569 of these being psychiatric.

So who the fuck knows?

[Mari333]

7. damn...anyway Ill find the site

the Guardian forums, where I get a lot of European news, told me that their channel 4 in the UK says that over 11,000 evacuees have been thru there..ergo, they get real news, we get none...
I am waiting for someone at the forums to give me a site to post