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90% survive war wounds
Wounded American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have a 90 percent survival rate -- the highest of any war in U.S. history -- despite suffering torn-off limbs, extensive burns and bodies shredded by shrapnel.

Ten percent of the injured are dying, compared with 30 percent in World War II and 24 percent in Vietnam, according to an article published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

But the scars of survival can be devastating.

"These are injuries that were uniformly fatal in previous wars -- such as losing three limbs," said Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Harvard Medical School who wrote the article after extensive research and interviews with people serving in Iraq.

"No one used to survive when they were this badly injured."

Two men who did are B.J. Jackson, who lost both legs when his Humvee was ambushed in Baghdad, and Army Cpl. J.R. Martinez, who lost 40 percent of the skin on his body in Karbala....