The MSM has made much of the deaths of our heroes and heroines in Iraq. The total, according to the latest count, is 2065. I suppose the magic number will be 3000--the same number that perished in the attack on the World Trade Towers.
Although it's a bit early, here are some stats on the previous attack on American soil. I found them by Googling Pearl Harbor & December 7 & casualties:
| US PERSONNELL CASUALTIES: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Navy: 2008 killed, 710 wounded = 2718 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Army: 218 killed, 364 wounded = 582 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marines: 109 killed, 69 wounded = 178 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Civilians: 68 killed, 35 wounded = 103 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total of 2403 killed, 1178 wounded = 3581 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Here is another website I found that lists the casualities for all U.S. combat actions, beginning with the Revolutionary War:
II. Casualties
<------------Casualties------------>
[-----Deaths---]
Conflict Enrolled Combat Other Wounded Total
Revolutionary War 200.0 4,435 * 6,188 10,623
War of 1812 286.0 2,260 * 4,505 6,765
Mexican War 78.7 1,733 11,550 4,152 17,435
Civil War: Union 2,803.3 110,070 249,458 275,175 634,703
Confederate 1,064.2 74,524 124,000 137,000 + 335,524
Combined 3,867.5 184,594 373,458 412,175 + 970,227
Spanish-American War 306.8 385 2,061 1,662 4,108
World War I 4,743.8 53,513 63,195 204,002 320,710
World War II 16,353.7 292,131 115,185 670,846 1,078,162
Korean War 5,764.1 33,651 * 103,284 136,935
Vietnam War 8,744.0 47,369 10,799 153,303 211,471
Gulf War 2,750.0 148 145 467 ^ 760
Combat deaths refers to troops killed in action or dead of wounds. Other includes deaths from disease, privation, and accidents, and includes losses among prisoners of war. Wounded excludes those who died of their wounds, who are included under Combat Deaths. Ratio is the proportion of wounded in action to combat deaths. Note that the wounded figures do not include cases of disease.
Notes:
* Non-battle deaths not known for these wars.
+ Confederate non-battle deaths and wounded estimated.
& Actually only six weeks of sustained combat.
^ There was only one month of combat.
Notice that WWII was officially 44 months long--nearly four years.
According to this website, the number of troops in Iraq may be as high as 150,000. This is, of course, the number of troops currently deployed and does not count those who may have rotated out of Iraq. But to keep the math easy, let's use that number.
So, if we look at the number of military personnel killed by the number of personnel deployed in Iraq, we get (2065/150,000) x 100, which equals 1.4%. For WWII, the totals were (292,131 killed in combat/ 1,635,370 enlisted) x 100, which equals 1.8%. This number does not include those who died while POWs nor does it include the figures for the U.S. Merchant Marine.
To sum it up, during WWII, the U.S. public was willing to allow a higher probability of death than during the current Gulf War. Remember, too, that there was a mandatory draft in the 1940's--my uncle came home from a trip to the World Series to find his notice from the President--a year before Pearl Harbor. Today's military is all volunteer.
Perhaps there is some latent racism operating here. The MSM and the liberal American public was willing to go to war in Europe because we were defending white Europeans, for the most part. Remember, it was Japan who attacked Pearl Harbor. And, although Hitler and the German government declared war on the U.S., they did so only after FDR had declared war on Japan. There were those in the U.S. who argued that attacking Japan should be our primary concern; that we did not have enough men or materiel to fight a war on two fronts. Most of the U.S. fleet had been destroyed in the attack on Pearl Harbor; there was also significant damage to the Army Air Corps fleet of planes.
FDR did not lose focus, however, on who the real enemy was, nor on who were our true Allies.
Has the American character really changed so much in the last sixty years? Or is it merely buried under the flotsam and jetsam of modern life?
(H/T: The Anchoress, Sigmund, Carl, & Alfred)
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