The other day in a conversation with my father, he made the claim that the soldiers currently serving in Iraq are at less risk of being killed by another person than they would be in the US. Supposedly, on a military base in, say, California, there’s a high rate of fatalities from bar brawls and the like, higher even than the rate of getting shot or otherwise killed by enemy action. Naturally, this got me suspiscious, so of course, like any smart suspicious person, I turn to the Dope. My question is threefold:
1: What is the death rate from enemy action for soldiers currently serving in Iraq?
2: What is the death rate from violence at military bases on American soil?
3: What is the death rate from violence other than enemy action for soldiers serving in Iraq (surely they have bar brawls there, too)?
Any cites would be appreciated, but especially cites from official military sources, as I suspect that my dad isn’t going to accept any other source. And please, let’s keep this out of GD: My question is asking for three factual numbers, not for opinions.
The total casualty count in Iraq, for both the United States and all coalition troops. 432 military deaths and 20 civilian deaths for the US. The site divides them by hostile and non-hostile deaths.
I have no data on American soldier deaths on american soil, but we can try some logic. We’ve had 74 military American deaths in Iraq in November, out of 130,000 total troops there. That’s equal to 57 deaths per 100,000 troops. By contrast, America has somewhere around 6.5-7.0 murders per 100,000 people each year. If the death rate among the military stationed within the country was that much larger than the death rate among the population at large, we would have to hear more about it. So I think we can safely say that our troops in Iraq are in more danger.
Chronos as far as Air Force safety is concerned, there are solely one or two deaths from military to military violence a year. 90% of the reports, i.e. “advisories” we get are from vehicular or drunken misbehavior (drunken driving, accidents involving alcohol or drugs, etc.) These “advisories” constitute nearly 95% of the stuff we see.
There was a handful of others, one of which being a guy that fell asleep at the wheel. But then again, that wasn’t a ‘death rate due to violence’. Of the hundred or so advisories, only two were related to either gang violence, or just being mugged–none were on base or at the hands of another military member.
Tripler
Any fatalities on a military base are 99.9% accidental, and are job-related fatalities.
That’s pretty much what I thought, but Dad was claiming “about ten a month on a base of 15,000 men” where he was stationed. Yes, I think that’s awfully high, and that folks would have heard about that, but I don’t think that I’m going to be able to convince him otherwise based on anything as flimsy as common sense or logic.
For the record, by the way, the figure of interest here is not military to military violence; it’s anybody to military.
The data in a report I found is from 1980 to 1993, so it’s not current but it probably provides some insight into the relative risks. Here is the summary page which has a link to the complete report.
Key numbers are a total annual death rate military of between 117 and 73 per 100,000 (declining during study period). My guess is that now, during the “occupation period” soldiers have a little more risk of being killed by hostile attack than soldiers other places have of dying from all causes but not a lot more. Keep in mind that Marines and Army have a generally riskier life than Navy and Air Force.
Also, remember that the more local the sample, the higher the numbers can be without necessarily being meaningful and also without attracting a lot of attention. The OP father’s memory may have been a very local situation. As was noted the US total homicide rate, although high by some standards, is less than 10 per 100,000 (I’ve seen 9 as the average number). However, in 2002 (? as I remember), Washington DC reached 227 per 100,000 for the subgroup of black male teenagers.
If there were ten deaths a month consistently, barring some freak sequence of accidents involving heavily laden transport aircraft, the Wing Commander would be looking for a new job as of yesterday. If they didn’t outright fire him, his career would still be over, or at least go no further. At least that how it is now. I make no claims as to the way it was with your Dad.
Needless to say, the casualty rate is considerably higher in Iraq than it is in the States. What I wanted to do was find the last year when we didn’t deploy our forces massively in a war, which would probably be 2000, and see what the normal (i.e. Not wartime) rate was, but I couldn’t dig it up. Maybe someone else will give it a shot and have better luck.
Amn Doors is absolutely right–which is why Wing commanders are harping on people and taking stripes over DUIs. However, like I mentioned before, 99% of the non-combat related deaths are from “accidents” resulting in fatigue, alcohol or drug use, or something else along those lines. I’ll personally vouch that 99.999% of that original 99% is a result of a vehicular or machinery accident.
And this is what AF Safety is all about. Keeping people alive when they’re not actually in combat.
Tripler
Thankfully, not all incidents result in a fatality.
Add to this the “de-glamorization” af alcohol that the military has been pursuing for the last ten years and the number of “drunken bar brawls” goes down considerably.
The combined effects of Tailhook and the increased scrutiny of DUIs have made clubs on base liabilities for the commanders. Heck, even the Auger Inn at Randolph is a cheap imitation of what it was ten years ago.
Chronos as people have suggested your father is probably remembering a specific time-frame at a specific base. Yes, we are at war now, but the military has changed. It’s an all-volunteer force, DUIs and public intoxication are prosecuted now rather than ignored, and for the most part people are proud to be serving.
After my earlier post with a source that showed a total death rate of 73 per 100,000 in 1993, I found various more recent numbers but nothing quite complete enough. In general, however, it all seems to indicate that, barring combat and war zones, military death rates have now dropped to about 40 per 100,000 which would mean that serving in the military is quite safe except for the combat zone assignments.