War Wounds

War Wounds
Local Hospital Treats Injured Soldiers

POSTED: 2:33 pm EST February 4, 2005
UPDATED: 2:40 pm EST February 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- There have been well over 10,000 war casualties since the war in Iraq began.

But the survival rate for those troops is much higher than in any previous conflict.

"I walked out of my tent and walked 20-30 feet and I got hit by a mortar. It dropped out of the sky -- out of no where," said Senior Airman Brian Kolfage.

The 23-year-old remembers almost everything about Sept. 11, 2004. He was in Northern Iraq -- his second tour over there -- when he suddenly came very close to getting killed.

"The mortar landed about five feet away from me. It blew me up in the air. I landed on my back. I was conscious, looking. I didn't know what happened. I looked -- my hands were all bloody and it clicked and I knew I was in trouble," Kolfage said.

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