Test your "military" knowledge..

Is that 2,465 combat deaths?

IG

Reply By: InfoGeekPosted: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Is that 2,465 combat deaths? IG

UMmmm dead is dead IG.

Not with the point he is making.

The press is talking about over 3000 combat deaths. A combat death in the desert is very different than a soldier who dies in Tacoma.

IG

Yes actually it is the point InfoGeek.

Why are the numbers more important and being touted as being so bad, when we lost more good men and women in peace time? Dead is dead, no matter where it is.

No, not quite.

If a firefighter dies in a blazing fire trying to save a life, that death and the mystique around it is very different if he died in a car accident.

A soldier who dies of old age in his own bed is very different than a soldier who dies in the desert in some far away land.

IG

The deaths reported were not natural causes and were deaths other than natural. BIG DIfference. One of those (1984) was Russell Smith, 3rd ID shot in the head during a training accident. Thats the kind of deaths we are talking about. I know he was my roommate.

So they were active personnel, but not in cmbat situations.

Why are the numbers more important and being touted as being so bad, when we lost more good men and women in peace time?

Because we (or those we elected) put them there, we put them in harms way. We bear some responsibility for their deaths. The death of Mr. Smith, while unfortunate, was done within the confines of "the military" and we bear no responsibility, as we cannot control the "normal" operations fo the armed forces.

IG

Ok, now add in the # of deaths from non-combat causes. Suicides, overdose, car wrecks, training accidents, pneumonia. All that.

"So they were active personnel, but not in cmbat situations." Thats the point! You got it.

"Ok, now add in the # of deaths from non-combat causes. Suicides, overdose, car wrecks, training accidents, pneumonia. All that."

That does include those. On both sets of numbers. Thats the point!!!

http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/Death_Rates.pdf

Anyone who dies "in the line of duty". Taking a bullet, dying in a fire... dying doing what they are paid to do... is treated differently than if the same person died at home. That just is.

A soldier who gets shot in Iraq is very different, at least in the mind of the citizenry, than a soldier who gets hit by a car.

I believe even the military treats them differently.

IG

OK let me type this slowly so you understand..

T h e  m e d i a  t r i e s  t o  m a k e  t h e  n u m b e r s  a p p e a r  w o r s e  t h a n  t h e y  a r e .

Why did they not report how many soldiers died in a year when the number was over 2500 for one year alone in peacetime? Because it did not suit the bias of the media and its outlook on our International involvment. Now it does so they report them, knowing that each time they embolden the enemy and demoralize the US citizens.

 

No, you're not getting what I'm saying.

Take the combat dead and add that to the non-combat deaths. Compare THAT number to your peace time dead figure from the early 80s.

If we had not invaded Iraq we would have 3,500 LESS dead and 25,000 LESS injured. Given the fact that ALL these dead and Injured has not made us safer but has increased the number of NUTS that will attack us in the future, we have made a TRAGIC ERROR!

These dead and injured took place AFTER, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!

Why did they not report how many soldiers died in a year when the number was over 2500 for one year alone in peacetime?

Because they died in peacetime and over a large area.

Now, as the President says, we are at war, everything changes.

We have 3,000 dying in a small area that we sent them to.

Why are the 3,000 who died on 9/11 so revered? Large numbers of people die, in other ways, (Katrina, tidal waves, etc), but it was HOW they died that gives them the added importance.

The soldiers who die in Iraq and Afgan are treated differently because they are different, the HOW they died is different, the WHY they were there is different and the WHO killed them is different.

Why are the men who died in the Arizona, D-Day, Iwo Jima different than those who died of natural causes during the war/

Because they are.

IG

dictator col gene this proves you to be an idiot again. out of those 3500 some may have been killed in accidents and out of the 25,000 some would have been hurt.

during the year i was in. one of the true soldiers didn't quite brake his back but he came close. His back bone was completely out of shape. and i also believe that during that 4 years in the 80's. The troop barracks in Lebanon was attacked i don't remember the number killed there. Everyone blames Reagan for those deaths. I blame the democrats in congress. Because they tried and succeeded in telling the president how to run a war operation. What i mean is that the democrat controlled congress ordered the president to order the troops not to have more than one bullet in their guns. This included the guards at that barracks location. So when the suicide bomber ran the barricade the guards had nothing to stop him with.

 

Actually, the pdf has *total* number of deaths.  If you add up the columns to the right, they add up to the "Total Deaths" figure.  "Hostile Action" is the number that died from combat.

It's a strange graph, indeed, but it does have the total from all causes.

I missed the pdf somehow.

A couple things jump out at me.

First, why 1983 as a comparison year? That # is also inflated by the 241 deaths in Beruit.

Second, you'll notice that the number of "accident deaths" has gone waaaaaay the hell down since 1983.

I don't think the perspective you've chosen is particularly apt.

It would be 9500 (with TONS of accidental deaths which the US military has obviously learned to better avoid) v. 6,785 deaths (not exact since the war started in March '03 and '07 #s are not available as per the pdf).

The main thing I've learned from your comparison is that the military has improved safety standards drastically. So now instead of dying from slipping on spilled coffee and landing neck first on a fork in the DFAC, our Soldiers are being ripped apart by shrapnel so some assholes in a foreign country can have the opportunity to freely VOTE for a government that hates us and wants to oppress them.

We've come a long way, baby.

damielost

I bet the VAST majority of the dead and injured are from combat and NOT accidents. My point is that what ever the number they were lost by a needless WAR that has not made America Safer!!!!!!

whatever we know that the vast majority of dead in a war is from combat but you made a statement that you knew for a fact that non of those who are dead or hurt would not have been hurt if there had been no war. my point is that no one on the earth can know that.


and some of those who are dead or hurt in the combat zone are by accident anyways

Col Gene, I can't agree with your assessment of the war or it's result. I do know a little about the Army both in peacetime and at war. I don't know where you got the title "Col", but if it was bestowed by congress, you know that every year, peace or war, the Plans makers at every level of command factor in a certain percentage of injury and fatality. Some years are better than others. We lost more soldiers in one peacetime jump into the Mojave Desert during the eighties than were lost to combat in the first week of Desert Storm. Soldiers die and soldiers get hurt learning the trade they practice. During the manuever phase of this Iraq war, our losses were phenominally low. During some peacetime years, they were high...go figure. That is neither here nor there. I think Shadowar's point was that the numbers...high or low...are being manipulated by the press to present the image of a bitter, Vietnamish, unwinable, "insurgant" war. That point appears to be valid. Arguing about the merits of the war...the catagories of comparison...manner of death...these are all smoke and mirrors. When the Democrats succeed in taking the White House back, you will see many of the same numbers being reported to prove what a fine job the new president is doing.

Thanx for the article, Shadowar...well done.

I bet if you did a study of the general public during the same period of time the results would be similar. This was an era when the legal drinking age was 18 and later 19. Add in the fact that seatbelts were not in use at all in the public.
The numbers cited are almost all accident related. Even deaths due to illness are down. I seem to recall that during the first Gulf War there were about the same number of fatalities in the training leading up to the war as there were during the war.
These stats also do not take into account the number of people maimed. The biggest thing you are not taking into effect is the size of the military. We had on average 2.2-2.3 million compared to 1.6-1.7 million during operations in Iraq.
I guess the only thing that you've proved is that statistics can lie like you want them to.

Col Gene, I can't agree with your assessment of the war or it's result. I do know a little about the Army both in peacetime and at war. I don't know where you got the title "Col", but if it was bestowed by congress, you know that every year, peace or war, the Plans makers at every level of command factor in a certain percentage of injury and fatality. Some years are better than others. We lost more soldiers in one peacetime jump into the Mojave Desert during the eighties than were lost to combat in the first week of Desert Storm. Soldiers die and soldiers get hurt learning the trade they practice. During the manuever phase of this Iraq war, our losses were phenominally low. During some peacetime years, they were high...go figure. That is neither here nor there. I think Shadowar's point was that the numbers...high or low...are being manipulated by the press to present the image of a bitter, Vietnamish, unwinable, "insurgant" war. That point appears to be valid. Arguing about the merits of the war...the catagories of comparison...manner of death...these are all smoke and mirrors. When the Democrats succeed in taking the White House back, you will see many of the same numbers being reported to prove what a fine job the new president is doing.

Thank you. You explained it better than I would have in response to his post.

If any of you are worried about attacks against the U.S. outside of Afgahnastan or Iraq just consider what happened during years of peace. Beruit, first World Trade Center bombing, Embassy in Darfar, USS Cole, Civilian Airline flown into the Twin Towers bring them down and many others I have not mentioned. Now consider the attacks agaqins the U.S. outside of the war zone since the invasion of Iraq. Umm, can't think of any. Yes we are losing good soldiers in the war, but they joined to protect the U.S. it's interests and it's citizens. They are doing this quite well. Yes, we have lost over 3,000 good men and women in this war, but how many civilians would we have lost if we were not in Iraq attracting the terrorists to that location rather than letting them roam the globe?