The American Spectator

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"One of the reasons we have people alive today is body armor," Colonel Place said. "It works."

Primarily because it protects the torso, which if damaged by shrapnel can result in wounds that not even the best surgeons can close fast enough.

"Body armor prevents a number of traumatic injuries to the torso," Colonel Place said. "It allows people who would otherwise die to have only severe extremity trauma."

In addition to training and technology, transportation plays an important role in assuring that our soldiers get the best care possible, as soon as possible. For instance, because the U.S. has been able to improve infrastructure in Iraq and assure that there's a steady, reliable supply of electricity at most bases, hospitals have been able to import blood from the U.S.

"Those blood supplies are saving lives," Major Maxwell said. "A good safe supply of blood from the U.S. is key."

In late 2005 U.S. military hospitals in Iraq acquired the ability to make platelets, which are also vital to stopping bleeding in trauma patients.

"Blood was pretty readily available from the start of the conflict," Major Maxwell said in a November 2005 interview. "It's the more complicated blood products that have become available more recently."

And because platelets expire in a week from the time they're drawn from the donor, it's important to have the infrastructure to both harvest them and store them.

"That requires a pretty sophisticated supply line," Major Maxwell said. "Just look at Napoleon's march through Russia. The lesson there was don't outrun your supply lines."

WHILE SOME CRITICS WOULD ARGUE that we've made the lives of Iraqis worse, not better, the doctors clearly don't see it that way. That's because the U.S. military has taken on the added responsibility of treating Iraqi civilians -- be they wounded by a suicide bomber or suffering from more common ailments.

p>"The military medical facilities take care of three groups," Colonel Place said. "Coalition forces, Iraqi civilians, and Iraqi detainees." br> It is U.S. policy that Iraqi civilians stay in U.S. military hospitals until they're ready to be released or can be transferred to an Iraqi civilian hospital that can adequately care for them. Afghanistan is much the same way. /p>

"Coalition hospitals are often all that's available," Colonel Place said.

Indeed, many of the doctors who served in Iraq or Afghanistan said that upwards of half the patients in U.S. hospitals were civilians. Colonel Searle worked regularly with Iraqi doctors, most of whom were Western trained and educated, but who suffered from a lack of trained nurses and equipment.

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