An American soldier was wounded in the head while fighting in eastern Afghanistan, and evacuated to a hospital in Germany. In over a year of combat, 26 American troops have died in combat, and 28 in non-combat incidents (mostly accidents). This is an exceptionally low casualty rate (less than one percent a year) for a force of some 9,000 troops in a very hostile area. During World War II, combat divisions would suffer that rate of dead per day. It's also unusual for the non-combat deaths to be higher than combat deaths, especially when the non-combat losses are from accidents and not diseases.
