HERE'S AN INTERESTING QUESTION: In strictly monetary terms, how much do you think your penis is worth?

a. Warren Buffett couldn't count that high, even if he used Bill Gates's calculator.

b. Depends. By the inch—or by the foot?

c. The value increases up to the first three beers, after which value begins to drop dramatically.

d. Actually, it's worth less than my left thumb.

Here's the sad truth: If you're a member of the U.S. military, then the answer is d. Take a bullet, step on a mine, or get into a jeep accident—and lose your thumb as a result—and your compensation is $50,000. Lose your penis and, unless you're otherwise incapacitated in the process, it's on you, pal. Good luck with that.

You might think this is a quirky curiosity, a trivial statistical glitch like one of those "weird laws" you see flashed on the monitor at your neighborhood bar. And it would be, if young men serving in Afghanistan weren't losing part or all of their genitals at alarming rates.

As contributing editor Bob Drury reports, each war has its own signature wound, a unique form of havoc wrought on the soldiers fighting it. Shell shock—a condition brought on by concussions and/or emotional fatigue sustained in the trenches—became the signature wound of World War I; in World War II, pilots suffered high rates of facial burns; in Vietnam, automatic weapons, mines, and booby traps resulted in high rates of amputations among our soldiers. In Iraq today, soldiers often experience traumatic head injuries when improvised explosive devices detonate beneath their tanks.

But in Afghanistan it's different. The bombs go off underfoot. The damage is from the ground up. Our troops aren't sufficiently protected to ensure that their manhood stays intact. And while technology exists to reinforce a soldier's undercarriage, our military hasn't yet made it a priority. Why would it, when a penis is worth less than a thumb?

In this issue, we'll introduce you to some of the most heroic men you'll ever meet. They volunteered to go to war to help keep America safe and improve the lives of people in the Middle East. They're also heroes because they suffered terrible damage and summoned the will to live, to fight through it and move on. But more than that, they're heroes because they found ways to preserve their dignity and masculinity in the face of an enemy that tried to steal both.

You'll be stunned and moved—to tears or to anger or both—when you meet these men.

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