Military deaths since 1980

Military deaths since 1980
Posted by: mcq on Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Military duty is inherently dangerous, even in peace time.

Some interesting numbers [pdf] have been released. They give the totals and reasons for military deaths from 1980 through 2004.

Of course we've had no full-scale war on our hands in that time other than Iraq (yes we had various actions and even the Gulf "War", but certainly nothing like Vietnam, Korea or WWII).

The reason this is interesting to me is to point out that in the very recent past we have lost as many in the military to accidents in a year as we have recently to combat in Iraq. In fact, in some years, we've lost 2 to 3 times more to accidents than we have to hostile action in Iraq.

For instance, from 1980 to 1989 the military averaged 2,123 deaths a year. Most from accidents (375 from hostile or terrorist activity). In 1991, 1,787 died on military duty. Of those 147 were KIA in the Gulf War.

In 2003 we suffered 1,410 military deaths, of which, 560 were a result of hostile action. In 2004 it was 1,887, of which 565 were a result of hostile action.

Hat Tip To The QandO Blog For This. More @ http://tinyurl.com/fa3y7

I saw stats at the time of Gulf War I that said it was far safer to be in the war zone than at home.

While I don't want to see any US Military hurt or killed they are after all professionals. If they aren't in the war zone they are going to be training some place. And yes people do get killed in training and they do get injured. I know two former paratroopers who are out of the military now because of injuries sustained in jumps.

It has also been my experience that combat troopers are combat troopers because they want to break things and kill people. (Yes it is fun and becomes habit forming in short order)