My point is if casualties in WWII make someone a soldier, the Merchies (with great affection) took the highest rate of casualties of any service in WWII.
Since Merchies are civilians, they are not soldiers, that provides a counter example that refutes your assertion that casualties make soldiers.
A specious claim that I asserted such. The poster I replied to insinuated Navy and Air Force personnel weren’t soldiers. I merely showed the combat death among those three branches of ‘soldiers’. Your segue save into merchant marines still is beside the point.