I have a feeling the reason it’s not released is that he was grazed as slightly as anyone has ever been grazed before.
If he was missing a chunk of ear, the political value of that would be too much for him to avoid showing it off. The more grizzled the better. If he showed of something that looks like a slight cut, ppl may have significantly less sympathy for him than they do now. He is allowing those with sympathy to fill in the knowledge gap with their imagination, which is probably much worse than the actual injury, I would bet.