From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

On October 13th, the Washington Times reported an American soldier based in Iraq as saying,

if one person dies, five or six are getting wounded,

but people are only hearing about the one who was killed.

In fact, as of October 30th,

the total number of American soldiers wounded since the war began

has reached 20084, that 1745 wounded in hostile combat and 339 in non-hostile action.

New Republic Senior Editor Lawrence Kaplan recently wrote on America's Near Invisible Wounded.

Since that piece was published, we hear it on the media, have noticed a very slight uptick in the mentions of the non-fatal casualties.

This was NBC reporter Nora O'Donnell at the press conference at the White House last Tuesday.

Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said mission accomplished.

At that time, you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time, there have

been over a thousand wounded, many of them amputees who were recovering at Walter Reed.

Lawrence Kaplan joins me now. Lawrence, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

You went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Tell me about that experience.

It was actually an incredibly revealing experience,

but a particularly upsetting experience as well.

I had heard from sources in the military that every night,

...