Posted on 06/05/2004 8:03:35 AM PDT by John Jorsett
So far, the war on terror has killed 923 American troops. While 801 have died in Iraq, most of the rest died in Afghanistan. Half were married, and they leave behind nearly 600 children. In a sharp break with past wars, three percent of the dead are women. In past wars, the number of military women killed amounted to a tiny fraction of one percent. A third of the deaths were not combat related, 31.3 percent were from accidents and illness. This points out a fact that is often overlooked; that the number of combat casualties has been driven down so low by new technology, tactics and training, that non-combat deaths are now increasing as a percentage of all deaths. Only in the last century has medical care improved to the point where, for the first time in history, more troops were killed from enemy action than due to accidents and disease. But now the technology is driving down the number of combat deaths as well.
During the Vietnam war, for example, only 19 percent of deaths were from non-combat causes. Moreover, nearly 30 percent (29.4 percent) of the combat deaths in Iraq are from roadside bombs. This sort of thing, and a few deaths booby traps, drift over towards the non-combat category, as it is a common military practice to tear up roads and blow up bridges. The bad roads, and poorly repaired bridges cause traffic deaths that are classified as non-combat, but some battlefield deaths are more closely related to combat than others.
The dead are also older (27 years on average), than in Vietnam (22 years old). This is because there are more reservists involved (17 percent now, versus ten percent in Vietnam). The race of the dead has also changed. During Vietnam, it reflected the racial composition of the country (although early in the war, proportionately more blacks died, versus more whites later in the war.) Today, slightly more whites are killed (70.9 percent) compared to their proportion of the population (69.1 percent.)
Now that it’s an all-volunteer force, and high educational standards mean that the military isn’t accepting those who “can’t get a job,” things like patriotism matter. This element is often missed by the media, but recruiters know that it is often a major factor in the decision to enlist. The rural areas of the country, which contain only about twenty percent of the population these days, produced 29 percent of those who have been killed so far. The majority of the troops still come from cities and suburbs, but nearly a third are country boys (and girls) for whom being uniform is more of a patriotic duty than a job.
God Bless Our Troops!
Just out of curiosity, how many people have been murdered in Detroit, Cincinnati, and Washington, DC during that same period...?
We mourn every loss. We will carry their memory within our hearts until the day we join them. There is absolutely no way we can express our gratitude for these men and women who sacrifice so much to keep us safe, but we should start by making sure that the families they leave behind are taken care of.
Excellent question.
Throw in LA and NYC and I bet it's triple.
Interesting statistics. Thanks for posting this.
Telling numbers.
As a resident of the Detroit area, I can tell you that in the city itself there were 102 homicides in the first 3 months of 2004 and that most of them were drug/gang/other crime related and aside from a handful of innocents caught in crossfires, these deaths were not tragedies but predictable consequences of violent behavior.
It doesn't seem right to compare them to soldiers who died defending America or even mention them in the same breath.
No no what you need to ask is what was the # of soldiers we lost in the 4 years from 1941-45 Wasnt it like 250000 men? I know it is not the same but i think we need to take the casualties in perspective...
No, it doesn't seem right, but when the left starts shouting about American deaths in Iraq it's good to have some facts about the "Fallujahs" of America....
Apples and oranges!
Murders in American cites have nothing to do with the deaths of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Some 2003 stats from here...
Despite a sharp drop in homicides, Chicago has regained the title of America's murder capital.
The city finished 2003 with 599 homicides, police said. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600.
Still, the nation's third-largest city outpaced all others for the second time in three years. New York, with about three times the population, ended the year with 596 homicides. Los Angeles, which had the most murders in 2002 at 658, wound up 2003 with 499.
Who said they were related?
Come on, freebilly. Too cute by half.
Say again?
Certainly true.
But the point is that the scumbag liberal media wants to make it look like we are getting wiped out in Iraq. A roadside bombing in Iraq which kills two soldiers gets front-page treatment while a South-Central Los Angeles gang skimish which kills two may or may not even make it into the paper.
I recommend that you use some critical faculties before posting inane comments.
StrategyPage doesn't proofread it's postings very well, so there's occasional indecipherable passages like this.
Sorry pal, now you're making no sense at all. You implied that your question was not related to the subject, and now you are implying that it is.
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