Today in Afghanistan, with IEDs becoming the Taliban’s weapon of choice, those injuries that do not kill our Marines outright or cause traumatic brain injuries will inevitably lead to multiple amputations. Troopers on foot patrol often lose both legs and one arm from the blast. We all walk with our arms swinging, whether it is down the block in front of our homes or on patrol outside of a supposed Taliban village. In Afghanistan, the body usually shields one arm whether the blast is behind, to the side, or in front of the marine.
To deal with these injuries, the military has recently developed a new kind of tourniquet specific for Afghanistan called a CAT or “Combat Action Tourniquets.” Two CATs are now being issued to every marine going to or already in Afghanistan. Each CAT has a black plastic cinch device around it that when pulled, tightens the tourniquet, cutting off the blood supply to the damaged or missing limb.
Today the marines in Afghanistan who go out on foot patrols go out with the tourniquets already loosely strapped high on their thighs so that the tourniquets can quickly be tightened immediately after a leg or a foot is blown off. No one ordered the marines to go out with tourniquets already in place. Abandoned in “The Grave Yard of Empires” they have simply decided on their own to give themselves the chance of at least going home alive.
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In May of 2010, the number of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000 after a suicide bomber in Kabul killed at least five United States service personnel. The ages of those killed clearly show that American troops are dying younger, often right out of boot camp. The apparent reason that the age of those killed in Afghanistan is dropping is that the pool of experienced combat troops is shrinking. Without a draft, the military has to send younger and less experienced soldiers and marines into the fight.
From 2002 to 2008, the average age of service members killed in action in Afghanistan was twenty-eight; in 2009, that age quickly dropped to twenty-six. This year, the 125 troops killed in combat had an average age below twenty-five. These are getting close to Vietnam ages. The other number that is similar to ’Nam is that the incidence of those killed to those wounded is going up as the number of IED attacks increase and the devices themselves become more powerful.
More of our troops are killed right then and there when the IED explodes, rather than being wounded. A bomb estimated at over 2,000 pounds recently killed seven American soldiers riding in a troop carrier. No one survived long enough to make it to a med-evac chopper, much less a hospital. That too is like ’Nam. Dead the moment you are hit.