Military Deaths In Iraq - A Perspective

The mainstream media seems overly focused on military deaths in Iraq. They appear to go beyond just reporting the deaths & use it as a way of discrediting President Bush - how wrong the war was & lookey at what the results are of his decision to go to war. Terrible terrible. The anti-war crowd & some Congressmen & Senators like to play the death card are well. While it goes without saying that any military death is tragic, some perspective needs to be put on it all.

The following are military deaths in previous wars:

Iraq 2,476
Korea 54,246
Vietnam 58,219
World War II 408,306

As of Saturday, June 3, 2006, at least 2,476 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 1,953 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

In comparison, the following lists military deaths due to accidents, in peace time, from 1980 - 1982, a comparable 3 year period with the 3 years of military deaths in Iraq since 2003:


Accidental deaths -
1980: 2,392
1981: 2,380
1982: 2,319

Military deaths in Iraq are 1/3rd the deaths due to accidents in those 3 years.

We are just putting things into perspective.