WHEN WATCHING Baghdad ER, it is important to remind yourself that it’s been worse. For every soldier instantly killed in combat during the Civil War, two died in the hospital from battlefield injuries. It is also important to put into perspective the number of fatalities suffered by the United States in conflicts over the years: 6,821 killed in Iwo Jima; 7,000 killed in the first twenty minutes at Cold Harbor, Virginia; and 12,731 Union soldiers felled during the battle of Antietam. In fact, at the very outset of Baghdad ER, the producers point out that 90 percent of soldiers wounded in Iraq survive–the highest survival rate in American military history.

Nevertheless, Baghdad ER may be one of the most difficult hours of television you’ll ever sit through–and also the most compelling. Because while you will watch in disgust as limbs are discarded and blood fills the screen, you will also be astounded by the courage and the professionalism of the patients and the doctors, nurses, and chaplains who tend to them. There are no reporters visible, no shoving of microphones in people’s faces. There are no questions asked. The men and women at the 86th Combat Support Hospital provide their own commentaries. When one sergeant is being treated after a sniper attack, an attending officer asks him if he shot back. “I was a little busy, laying on the ground, crying like a little bitch,” he replies. He was hit while distributing candy to Iraqi children.