MemeMachineGo!

CNN maintains a Coalition casualty page with brief info on all of the Coalition casualties in the Iraqi War. As of this writing, 843 dead, 737 of them from the U.S. Nearly all of them men, most of them young. How much can you read before going numb?

It also notes that 3,864 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in action, without details. You’ve got to figure a certain number of them are relatively trivial, like, say, spraining an ankle jumping off a Humvee, or the like. But that a lot of them are more like what’s happened to B.D. And much as I’d hate to go through what he will be, there’s worse .

While attention remains riveted on the rising count of Americans killed in action — more than 100 so far in April — doctors at the main combat support hospital in Iraq are reeling from a stream of young soldiers with wounds so devastating that they probably would have been fatal in any previous war.

More and more in Iraq, combat surgeons say, the wounds involve severe damage to the head and eyes — injuries that leave soldiers brain damaged or blind, or both, and the doctors who see them first struggling against despair.

For months the gravest wounds have been caused by roadside bombs — improvised explosives that negate the protection of Kevlar helmets by blowing shrapnel and dirt upward into the face. In addition, firefights with guerrillas have surged recently, causing a sharp rise in gunshot wounds to the only vital area not protected by body armor.

The neurosurgeons at the 31st Combat Support Hospital measure the damage in the number of skulls they remove to get to the injured brain inside, a procedure known as a craniotomy. “We’ve done more in eight weeks than the previous neurosurgery team did in eight months,” Poffenbarger said. “So there’s been a change in the intensity level of the war.”

And even as our troops are undergoing craniotomies, there are people lambasting Trudeau for his unpatriotic fictitious portrayal of an injured serviceman. One presumes these people never ceased considering covering their ears and going “la la la la la! I can’t hear you!” to be an effective strategy. (The comments printed there are overwhelmingly positive, though, many of them from people in the military, including many who note their disagreement with Trudeau’s politics.)

Meanwhile, legislation has been introduced in the Senate and the House to reinstate the draft .

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a Vietnam War veteran and an influential member of the Foreign Relations Committee, wants the United States to consider reviving the draft as part of a broader effort to ensure that all Americans “bear some responsibility” and “pay some price” in defending the nation’s interests. […] His main interest, he said, is to make sure that some kind of mandatory national service is considered so “the privileged, the rich” as well as the less affluent bear the burden of fighting wars of the future.

‘cause, after all, the draft has worked so well to ensure the privileged and rich don’t evade the burden of fighting wars. (Hagel didn’t introduce the Senate bill — both bills were introduced by Democrats.)

And Billmon has yet another illuminating compare and contrast , this time between U.S.-occupied Iraq and Japanese-occupied Manchukuo.