Dr. Gene Bowles is a neurosurgeon who came out of retirement to work at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany where he treats the wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq, among others. He's previously served and treated those wounded in Vietnam and Kosovo.

He offers his view as "food for thought" for all of us who know only the bloodless, sanitized, glorified versions of war, for all of us who still might think that in war there can ever be a winner.

Bolles spoke of "young kids having their extremities blown off, their eyesight lost, their brains badly injured." He treated "a whole bunch of kids who will have chronic pain from secondary spinal problems for the rest of their lives."

In this war, he said, with all its powerful artillery, he saw much more serious head injuries with more damaging concussive effects than in previous wars.

And, as with Vietnam and other wars, the numbers of soldiers who will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder will be staggering, he said. "Traumatic stress is not appreciated as a serious problem yet," he said. "It will be."

The daily tally of casualties, which includes only the numbers of American dead, doesn't begin to reflect the human cost, he said.

"It was not unusual to see a kid with an arm and two legs gone. It just tears at you, or at least it does me," he said. "And it's not just our kids; it's theirs too."