The gist of the email is that the number of military deaths is not significantly greater now than it was during the Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, or Carter administrations. I found one blog that contextualizes the numbers a little bit: as a percentage of total troops, military deaths have indeed risen dramatically under Bush II:
But still the death rate appeared to be lower in 2004 than 1980. The gradual decline from 1980-2000 is nice to see, but it’s surprising that it was that high to begin with.
So, was peacetime military duty THAT dangerous during the 80s (and presumably before)? Or are there some factors that contributed to peacetime duty being similarly dangerous than duty during wartime?
Well, after looking at the numbers a little more closely, I may have answered my own question. The number of troops in Iraq is simply a small minority of the total number of troops in service. So even a huge spike in violence there doesn’t affect the overall numbers THAT much.
Even if you take the figures at face value, what point are you trying to prove with these numbers? A critic of Bush vis a vis Clinton would likely point out that the total number of US servicemen killed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq under Bush is much higher than under Clinton (0), which seems to be the main beef with him. The total number of military deaths around the world would be neither here nor there, in that respect.
Note that the numbers include deaths due to accidents, illness, homicide and suicide, in addition to those due to hostile action or terrorist attack. If you look at just the number of deaths due to hostile action, then most of them occurred recently.
To me the whole premise is highly flawed. Even one military death in an ill-thought out, unjustified war is one too many.
The point is not the number of soldiers dead, it’s the reason they were put at risk in the first place. Lots more military personnel were killed in the Roosevelt/Truman years. Does that prove that the Bush administration has done well or that the Iraq war is a good thing? I think not.
The linked page says: “…the increase in the total number of deaths in the US military isn’t all that much greater under GW Bush than it was under the previous three (plus) Presidents.” I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to mean - the number of deaths did not increase during each of the previous three Presidents’ terms, it declined. It did increase increased during W’s.
Sounds like manipulation of statistics. If your starting point is arbitrarily large enough (the entire military establishment of the US, of the Coalition partners, the entire population of the US, US or world annual motor vehicle deaths etc) practically any number of deaths in war can be made to look comparatively puny.
Unless you are one of the people killed.
If you agree with the war, you are prepared to cope with the sacrifice involved.
If not, not.
And comparison of numbers in this way doesn’t legitimise the illegitimate or vice versa.
If you look into the numbers a little further, there’s more of a story to be told. During Reagan’s term, the military was roughly 40 or 50% larger than it is today (about 2.1 million service members vs. 1.3 million today). The fatalities from training accidents cost about two and a half times more lives during Reagan’s term compared to Bush II’s term: around 1,200 training deaths per year vs. about 550 in recent years.
Death by homicides has dropped dramatically: during Reagan, there were about 110 deaths per year, vs. about 40 per year today. And death by illness has dropped by a lot, from about 400 per year to about 150 recently, and suicides are down by about 50%.
Even considering the decline in the size of the military, it’s clear that troops are significantly less likely to be killed by training accidents, murderers, or themselves than they were 27 years ago. The only difference is combat deaths. And as Patton said in that movie, the point of war isn’t to die for your country, it’s to make the other poor bastard die for his.
