This site is dedicated to the history of the Military, with a strong lean toward the USMC and American history. I hope that it is enjoyed please feel free to comment on any post or if you would like to see something here, ask and I will do my best.

camo tent

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Me in 85' with my TOW system

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Iraq Casualties

There has been a lot of talk about excessive casualties of the US troops in Iraq, and more precisely the deaths of our US troop. I thought that I would put my input on the subject

As of 9/11/2006 according to the DOD 1.3 million troops have served
As of 11/7/2006 US serviceman deaths including sickness accident and misc was 2832
This number include a %20 non combat related deaths (617 deaths)
This brings the death rate percentage to a grand total of 0.00219
Subtract the noncombat deaths and you get a total of 0.00170
In 2003 US death caused by accidents was 3.64
109,277 deaths
US death caused by transportation accidents was 1.60
48,071 deaths
these stats are from national saftey council and can be view at http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm
I used 300 million people living in the USA although we didn't officially reach this number until 10/06
Going on these numbers its safer in Iraq
To put these numbers in respect to Vietnam as many people like to compare Iraq war to Vietnam
US Troop served in Vietnam 8.7 million troops
US deaths in Vietnam 58,000
This puts deaths at 6.66 (nice number)
I guess my point is as President if I was told that going to war would result any where near the death rate we have seen during Gulf War II, the question of should we go to war or not would be a whole lot easier.
It is also said that We only entered into war because of Oil. This may be so or not, however WWII was also about oil. Japan declared war on us only because we cut them off from oil. Germany declared war on us because we declared war on Japan.
You would be hard pressed to find a war not based on economics. Be it from expansion of territory, seizing a key area to better defend your assets. or elimating a threat to your assets.
It is possible to find wars fought out of pure Hate for the other side or because Paris stole your woman (Troy) I would put forth that these wars are by far less noble than expanding your $

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