Gery Vey: Iraq War Deaths Exceed Vietnam War Numbers

When I served as Advisory Team Leader in Vietnam, first near TriDao, north of Kuntum, and later in Trung Lap, in the middle of the so-called "Iron Triangle", I thought that the future wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be somewhat kinder to our men in our country's uniform. Obviously, I was mistaken, as Gary Vey points out: More Gulf War Veterans have died than those of us who served in Vietnam! There are 58,195 names recorded on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC, and by the grace of God, despite many trips over heavily mined dirt roads, mine is not among them, but this is NOT about me! Some of our Vietnam veterans died in the Jungles of Vietnam, where I often patrolled, as well as in the "Iron Triangle", near Cu Chi and Saigon. In the so-called triangle, near the many rubber plantations, my team and I almost died, fighting hard-core VC, and were saved only with the assistance of American helicopters. Iraq, of course, was different: "Our government under the "Bush Administration", did something dishonest, that resulted in a lie that has persisted since the war began, and continues to this very day: They decided to report the war deaths only if a soldier died with his boots on the ground in a combat situation. The combat in Vietnam was mostly in rural areas, far removed from medical treatment centers. Injured soldiers were treated by a medic. Most died at the scene of the battle before they could be evacuated. Many died en route or were declared dead at the medical treatment facilities. Under the new reporting system, deaths that happen en route or post evacuation, and are therefore not counted as combat deaths. The actual figures have been hidden from the American Public, just like the returning flag draped coffins were censored from the press, but the actual figures are now available, and we can only hope that the American people will be outraged when they learn how they have been misled: Total US Military Gulf War Deaths are 73,846, Deaths among deployed are 17,847, and deaths among non-deployed are 55,999. The statistics for non-lethal injuries include: 14,874 undiagnosed illnesses, disability claims among deployed: 407,911 and disability claims among non-deployed 1,212,995. Further- more, more than 1,820 tons of radioactive nuclear waste were exploded in Iraq alone, in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters. This represents the world's worst man-made ecological disaster ever! 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb! The US Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshima's.