map showing every US soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq

ChrisLaughlin · Post by **ChrisLaughlin** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:05 am

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/conte ... 10000.html

Puts things in perspective.

Henke · Post by **Henke** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:51 am

I can't help but think that if the Iraqs or Afghans had similar maps they would be all covered in red.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:02 pm

Afganistan is about the same size as Texas.

(just for comparison)

jGilder · Post by **jGilder** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:17 pm

And this map only shows those who were killed in action on Iraqi soil. You have to mulitiply it by about 10 to include those who died later from their wounds.

OutOfBreath · Post by **OutOfBreath** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:26 pm

jGilder wrote:And this map only shows those who were killed in action on Iraqi soil. You have to mulitiply it by about 10 to include those who died later from their wounds.

Can you back that up?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:42 pm

This is too hard for me to think about! We have lost a lot of people and it often makes me want to do really crazy things!

jGilder · Post by **jGilder** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:56 pm

OutOfBreath wrote:
jGilder wrote:And this map only shows those who were killed in action on Iraqi soil. You have to mulitiply it by about 10 to include those who died later from their wounds.
Can you back that up?

Yep

OutOfBreath · Post by **OutOfBreath** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 5:58 pm

jGilder wrote:
OutOfBreath wrote:
jGilder wrote:And this map only shows those who were killed in action on Iraqi soil. You have to mulitiply it by about 10 to include those who died later from their wounds.
Can you back that up?
Yep

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones.

I knew I could count on you for a reliable report with specific factual citations - not!

Even if you believe the source (notice that their citation is wonderfully non-specific) your math is way off. Even if one takes these figures at face value (yeah, right) the last I checked approximately 6500 divided by approximately 1500 is about 4.3 (one can only do approximates because they cite different inclusive dates for the official estimate vs. the estimate of "several foreign news services"). The last I checked "about 4.3" is less than half the "about ten" you claimed.

BTW, I seriously doubt those estimates of foreign "news" services for good reasons, not knee-jerk reactions. Even in 'Nam the mortality rate for soldiers that lived long enough to be removed from the theater of ops was no where near that high - and we have a heck of a lot better medical technology now than they did then. In fact, I read an AP article a while back that stressed that the VA is ill equipped to deal with the unusually high percentage of seriously wounded soldiers who survive and the cost of rehabilitating them or, in many cases, treating them for life.

So, for those foreign "news" services supposedly reviewed by your source to be correct it would mean that we would have to be suffering a far higher percentage of out-of-theater losses than we did when we had technology that was absolutely primitive by today's standards.

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:36 pm

None the less, it is clear that the 1700 odd deaths reported in the media represents the miminum, and includes only those casualties of combat who were DOA at hospital.

Those are the ones the pentagon's briefers announce and which the media has been counting. Later deaths at evac hospitals have been unreported and hence uncounted.

It's a no brainer to realize that some number of the 13,000 or more announced as wounded probably died later. I've never seen official figures, and I suspect they're a closely guarded secret which we'll only find out much later. However, the 1,700 figure is definitely unreliable.

I'm sure someone must know survival rates for serious trauma victims in modern hospitals, but I don't--applying that rate to the 13,000 we know to have been evacuated for medical treatment out of theatre is probably the best estimate of the true number of US combat deaths.

jGilder · Post by **jGilder** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:48 pm

OutOfBreath wrote:Even if you believe the source (notice that their citation is wonderfully non-specific) your math is way off.

I wouldn't expect you to believe any of my sources. However, the people reading this thread might have a different opinion. As for my math, I said "about" because I was guessing. I'm not a mathematician, but the bigger point I was making still stands.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:47 am

s1m0n wrote:
I'm sure someone must know survival rates for serious trauma victims in modern hospitals, but I don't--applying that rate to the 13,000 we know to have been evacuated for medical treatment out of theatre is probably the best estimate of the true number of US combat deaths.

When you say "evacuated out of theater" I assume you're referring only to those who were not treated successfully within the combat zone.

According to stat's I've dug up, during Vietnam 1 out of every 5.6 soldiers "hit" in combat died. The ration for WWII was 1:3.1 and Korea, 1:4.1.

If we surmise that military medicine has advanced since 1975 then it wouldn't be hard to surmise that the death rate is probably fairly small for those evacuated to a medical facility. Even if we use Vietnam figures then we come up with around 2400 of your 13,000 who died thereafter.

I'd be interested to find out how many total wounded there've been.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:17 am

Flyingcursor wrote:
s1m0n wrote:
I'm sure someone must know survival rates for serious trauma victims in modern hospitals, but I don't--applying that rate to the 13,000 we know to have been evacuated for medical treatment out of theatre is probably the best estimate of the true number of US combat deaths.
When you say "evacuated out of theater" I assume you're referring only to those who were not treated successfully within the combat zone.

...

I'd be interested to find out how many total wounded there've been.

As of July 5, 2005, OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) total casualties include 1346 killed in action, 397 non-hostile deaths, 6708 wounded in action and returned to duty, 6482 wounded in action and not returned to duty. -statistics from Department of Defence

Of the 6482 WIA not RTD, anyone, including all media, can access miltary service records at NARA's (National Archives and Records Administration) National Personnel Records Center through the Freedom of Information Act.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:23 am

Hey thanks Lorenzo.

You can always count on someone here to get the facts.

jGilder · Post by **jGilder** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 10:58 am

The DOD wasn't consistant with their casualty statistics during the Vietnam war, so what makes you think they would be this time around? DOD low-balled the casualty figures in Vietnam. It wasn't until the war was over that we got the actual numbers. The official count was something like 17,000 when the real count was in excess of 58,000 dead.

We already debated this last month. 9,000 US soldiers killed so far in Iraq?

EricWingler · Post by **EricWingler** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:07 pm

If you want to make a map with lots of dots on it, make a map of the US that shows the location of each alcohol related traffic death. I think the number is approximately 25,000 (a year). Of course, no one will be disturbed by this because we all know that people choose to get mowed down by a drunk driver. (Insert sarcasm emoticon here.)