U.S. military deaths

[snopes]

Comment: I don't believe this. Is it true? Please set the record straight.

Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan , the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost a total of 3,140 soldiers. As tragic as the loss of any soldier is, consider this: below is a list of deaths of soldiers while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2004:



FIGURES ARE CONFIRMED ON DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SITE

1980 2,392

1981 2,380

1982 2,319

1983 2,465

1984 1,999

1985 2,252

1986 1,984

1987 1,983

1988 1,819

1989 1,636

1990 1,507

1991 1,787

1992 1,293

1993 1,213

1994 1,075

1995 1,040

1996 974

1997 817

1998 827

1999 796

2000 758

2001 891

2002 999

2003 1,410 534*

2004 1,887 900*

2005 919*

2006 920*



* Figures are Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom fatalities only



Does this really mean that the loss from the two current conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during King Clinton's presidency? Were we at war?



Now, are you confused when you look at these figures? I was - especially when I saw that in 1980, during the reign of President "Nobel Peace Prize" himself, there were 2,392 military fatalities of U.S. soldiers.


What this clearly indicates is that our media and our liberal politicians pick and choose. They choose NOT to present the facts.

Another fact our left media and politicians like to slant is that these brave men and women losing their lives are minorities. The latest census shows the following:



European descent (white) 69.12%

Hispanic 12.5%

African American 12.3%

Asian 3.7%

Native American 1.0%

Other 2.6%



Now, the fatalities over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom are:



European decent (white) 74.31%

Hispanic 10.74%

African American 9.67%

Asian 1.81%

Native American 1.09%

Other 2.33%



Hmmmmmm.......



Please, don't just take my word, see for yourself:


Click here: Iraq Coalition Casualties http://icasualties.org/oif/



Click here: Gateway Pundit: US Lost More Soldiers Annually Under Clinton Than in Iraq http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...lly-under.html



Click here: Military Casualty Information
http://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personne...LTY/castop.htm

If this email is trying to get people to accept a certain side of the war debate, it isn't very good. Using past military deaths to justify other military deaths isn't a good argument. Of course both sides use the death's of soldiers to help further their agendas.

[rlobinske]

1983 2,465

Now, are you confused when you look at these figures? I was - especially when I saw that in 1980, during the reign of President "Nobel Peace Prize" himself, there were 2,392 military fatalities of U.S. soldiers.

But a higher death rate during one of Reagan's years is A-OK.

What this clearly indicates is that our media and our liberal politicians pick and choose. They choose NOT to present the facts.

Like you just did?

[Majorsam]

Hmmm....this is a classic case of statistics being used to obfuscate the truth by carefully comparing apples & oranges.

In any population of over 1,000,000 you're going to have deaths by accident that's somewhere around 1,000. During the Clinton administration there were, of course, deaths of servicemembers...but remarkably few of them were combat deaths because although we had plenty of interventions during that period (Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo etc) we had very light casualties. It hardly seems fair or rational to blame Clinton for all those deaths, or use it to justify the deaths of the current war.

And it seems obvious to me, but Reagan wasn't worse than Clinton because he had more deaths under his administration. The military was significantly larger, so suffered a high number (but probably similar per capita) instances of accidental death. As the military drew down in the "Peace Dividend" era, the number of accidental deaths dropped at the same rate.

As to the ethnic breakdown...well...yes, that's about right. For the past couple of years the Army Times has broken out service & casualties by race and Caucasians are slightly over represented. I regret I can't find that online, but here is a link to a reputable website for statistics on new recruits, and the percentages are more or less on par with what the author wrote.

I regret that I can't find a better source than the one cited by the original, but I'll keep at it...again, though, it is probably close to the truth. If the Army population is overrepresented by caucasians then it stands to reason that deaths will be overrepresented as well. There are some other things that the raw statistics don't show...African-Americans, for instance, are overrepresented by about 1/2% compared to the US population (14.5% vs. 15%) but wildly overrepresented in the Navy (14.5% vs. 20%) so if one factors the relative safety for the Navy for this war, that could account for a lot of the discrepency. Individual choices of jobs in the Army can also skew things.

So in closing...the statistics are believable and relatively close to accuracy...but the interpretation or implications are way off base.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Majorsam

And it seems obvious to me, but Reagan wasn't worse than Clinton because he had more deaths under his administration. The military was significantly larger, so suffered a high number (but probably similar per capita) instances of accidental death. As the military drew down in the "Peace Dividend" era, the number of accidental deaths dropped at the same rate.

As well, during the Cold War, didn't the U.S. military engage in a lot more large-scale maneuvers ("war games") and training exercises? These are always more dangerous than "static" training.

(Did you ever encounter the "TEWT," Tactical Exercise Without Troops? It was a sort of mapping and terrain-reading affair, where officers would look out over the landscape from a vantage point and discuss hypothetical maneuvers. "I could move a battalion up that ravine." "Yes, but I could cut it off at the end and subject you to enfilade." For purposes of familiarizing tactical officers with such concepts, it had the disadvantage of being abstruse and abstract, but had the advantage of not losing any soldiers to falls, heat stroke, or snakebite.)

War is hell...and training is no slice of heaven either!

Silas

[Eddylizard]

Wait, I'm confused.

The comment starts off

In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost a total of 3,140 soldiers

which would lead me to think that by "we" it means that the commenter is concentrating on United States personnel.

Then:

2003 1,410 534*

2004 1,887 900*

2005 919*

2006 920*

Now it's been a long time since I went to school, but AFAIK 1,410,534 + 1,887,900 + 919 + 920 doesn't add up to 3,140.

Or is this table some strange mish-mash of US fatalities looking at the 1980 figure, and then suddenly leaps to all military fatalities on all sides, plus maybe non combatants?

1980, during the reign of President "Nobel Peace Prize" himself, there were 2,392 military fatalities of U.S. soldiers.

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

It'd be 534 + 900 + 919 + 920 for the operations designated by the asterik. Then 1,410 + 1,887 + 919 + 920 total casualties.

It confused the heck out of me until I noticed that 1,410 534 and 1,887 900 didn't have a comma between the second and third set of didgets

[Majorsam]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

As well, during the Cold War, didn't the U.S. military engage in a lot more large-scale maneuvers ("war games") and training exercises? These are always more dangerous than "static" training.

(Did you ever encounter the "TEWT," Tactical Exercise Without Troops?

Yes, another good point. As we did the draw-down we did do fewer large-scale exercises...REFORGER comes to mind as one that got smaller & less frequent as time went by...and yes, the fewer large-scale exercises the fewer accidents that occured.

However I am not certain that the death rates shown correspond to just training accidents. If you check out this link, you can see some statistics on accidents for the Army. If you look at FY 1998 (at the height of 'King Clinton's' reign) you can see that the US Army lost 168 killed to accidents...but 102 of those were to privately owned vehicle accidents...in other words, soldiers in their own cars. 8 died in aviation accidents, meaning that very few (when one considers a population of about 478,000 for that year) died in training accidents.

Incidently, auto accidents are up sharply frmo 1998...142 soldiers died in 2005. I hope no one blames Bush for the sudden rise.

Yes, I am very familiar with the TEWT and it is an excellent training tool..and a great way to get outdoors without having to worry about the troops .

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Ryda Wong, EBfCo.

It'd be 534 + 900 + 919 + 920 for the operations designated by the asterik. Then 1,410 + 1,887 + 919 + 920 total casualties.

It confused the heck out of me until I noticed that 1,410 534 and 1,887 900 didn't have a comma between the second and third set of didgets

Ah I see. So no US service personnel died outside of the Afghanistan or Iraq theatres in 2005/2006 then. That's an improvement.

No snark intended (except at the OP comment.)

[UEL]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

(Did you ever encounter the "TEWT," Tactical Exercise Without Troops?

Up here we call it the PENIS. Practical Exercise Not Involving Soldiers.

These numbers are ALL US serivce casualties - heart attack at desk, suicide, or combat... to really get the true picture you need: these numbers, total military strength that year, total personnel in combat ops, total combat related deaths... hten with appropriate ratios you can make your statements... and facts are that per capita, deaths are down in general for military (peacetime) and combat is proportionally safer than in the past - but way damn dangerous still... combat deaths are up - but still prety proportional to umber of troops involved... whcih leads us right back to where we started - a set of numbers "both sides" can use / slice /dice / and dither over...

Warlok

[Seraphina]

There is another thing to consider about the Iraq war; for every soldier killed there are aproximately 10 maimed. That is about double from past conflicts. The reason is very speedy and efficient medical intervention. People with horendous injuries are surviving, and that means for 3 thousand killed in Iraq, some 30 thousand badly injured. I would like to know if any of these people die later on do they count as a casulty of the war? I also belive there is a quite high suicide rate among the Irag war vets, do they count in these figures?

[jimmy101_again]

The guys own statistics disprove his point.

From 1980 to the present, the number of service people deaths, from all causes, has trended down (perhaps because of the shrinking size of the military, perhaps for other reasons). From an initial level of ~2,400/year to a less than 1,000/year in 2002.

The curious thing about the sadistics is;

2003 1,410 534*
2004 1,887 900*

Apparently, the 534 and 900 numbers are combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. But why did the deaths from other causes rise roughly 200% from the trend of the preceeding twenty or so years?

Using these statistics, I think you could make a strong case that the number of deaths of servicement caused by Afghan/Iraq conflicts isn't ~3100, it is somewhere in the vicinity of ~7,000.

3100 combat dead 2003 to 2007
+ 500 extra (above the 20 year trend) in 2003 
+1000 extra in 2004 
+???  extra in 2005 
+???  extra in 2006 
+???  extra in 2007
------------------- 
Where the "estras" are the increased number of deaths per year that 
were not combat related.
If we use the average values from 2003 and 2004 then ??? equals about 750/year.
~6800 total military deaths as a result of "the war on terror"

Originally Posted by Seraphina

There is another thing to consider about the Iraq war; for every soldier killed there are aproximately 10 maimed. That is about double from past conflicts. The reason is very speedy and efficient medical intervention. People with horendous injuries are surviving, and that means for 3 thousand killed in Iraq, some 30 thousand badly injured. I would like to know if any of these people die later on do they count as a casulty of the war? I also belive there is a quite high suicide rate among the Irag war vets, do they count in these figures?

AFAIK if the soldier later dies of injuries reeived, it is recorded as a casualty, although not listed as in combat. Fell free to smack me if I'm misinformed. Honestly I wonder what the shock expressed is over deaths in a war. Yes, it's bad enough to lose one life, but it IS a war.
As a comparison, here are the murder rats in the US for the same years. And, yes, I understand a lot of the murders are committed by people in the family, domestic violence, or gang violence.

1980 23040 1990 23440 2000 15586
1981 22520 1991 24700 2001 16037
1982 21010 1992 23760 2002 16229
1983 19310 1993 24530 2003 16528
1984 18690 1994 23330 2004 16148
1985 18980 1995 21610 2005 16692
1986 20613 1996 19650
1987 20096 1997 18208
1988 20680 1998 16914
1989 21500 1999 15522


So, at the minimum, close to 5X as many murders in the general population than in combat, and as some have posted some of the deaths were during non war years, and events like heart attacks. Seems to me it's dangerous to be an American, not necessarily a soldier.
And, before I get flamed, I also know that the per capita murder rate in Canada is higher than in States that border Canada. That's PER CAPITA, not overall. And lots of the murders we have are at the point of a knife, baseball bat, or other bludgeoning, and in at least one case about two years ago, a chainsaw.

[jimmyc123]

A variation of this gets posted on some of the political discussion forums I frequent. When the number of soldiers killed in Iraq comes up someone will say "what about the 7500 soldiers who died while Clinton was President?".

The information comes from this document (there is a slight difference between some of the numbers in the OP, but they are essentially correct) -

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

Of course, that is 7500 total deaths of active duty military personnel, whether it be KIA, accident, disease, homicide, etc. During Clintons 2 terms there is only death listed due to hostile action.