Hand-to-hand in combat

[Presley Cannady]

The gunfighter is the spear tip of the modern infantry, but I'm curious as to how (in)frequently the fight pushes to close quarters. Looking at the casualty statistics for Iraq, it's obvious that deaths and wounds resulting from firefights and explosions vastly predominate, but I'm not sure if this tells me all I'd like to know about how often hand-to-hand is used to settle accounts on the field.