“These genitourinary injuries are not things we hear about or read about very often. I think one would agree it is as devastating as anything that our wounded warriors suffer, for a young man to come home in his early 20s with the pelvic area completely destroyed.”

In reality, The Times reports that 1,367 men in military service sustained injuries to their genitals between 2001 and 2013.

These types of injuries are very often caused by IEDs. A 2010 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggested that 12% of all war injuries involved genitourinary trauma.

And as I mentioned before, the loss isn’t just physical – it can have serious psychological, social and emotional issues as well. Richard J. Redett, the director of pediatric plastic and reconstructive surgery at Johns Hopkins, also told The Times;

“To be missing the penis and parts of the scrotum is devastating. These guys have given everything they have.”

In fact, the University of Southern California School of Social Work’s Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families, have discovered that, “there is a higher prevalence of depression and PTSD in those with GU trauma, as well as a slower recovery process, greater distress and more suicidal behavior than those without these types of injuries.”

Jamie P. Levine, an associate professor and chief of microsurgery at the Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Centre, revealed to Mic, just how significant the penis is for men;

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