US troops withdrawn over pain rather than injury

A new study has revealed that less than 15% of US military personnel evacuated from warzones in Iraq and Afghanistan over medical reasons had suffered from combat injuries.

The survey was conducted by researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, focusing on the medical problems of 34,000 US evacuees treated at a military hospital in Germany from 2004 to 2007.

The report was published in a British medical journal, the Lance.

Study leader Steven P. Cohen and his team claim serving US soldiers are more likely to be withdrawn from the battlefield due to back, joint or muscle pain than combat injuries.

More than 85% of the withdrawals were due to musculoskeletal pains as well as everyday medical problems like gastro-intestinal infections, respiratory diseases, chest and spinal pain.

Combat injuries (14%) are the second most common, followed by neurological disorders (10%(.

However, while psychiatric illnesses contributed to 9% of the evacuations in the studied cases, the study highlights that psychiatric problems of soldiers in Iraq had tripled to 14%, and nearly doubling in Afghanistan, to 11%.

The findings are similar to surveys on American medical evacuations during the wars in Vietnam and Korea, where combat wounds were also not the leading cause of evacuations.

Other experts are now warning that the large number of soldiers with chronic physical pain suggests hidden psychiatric illnesses such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The US Department of Defense is reportedly rethinking the length of soldiers’ tours of duty, and considering the weight of equipment that soldiers are routinely required, according to the BBC.