This got me thinking...

I'm a bit pressed right now... we have an appointment with Jake's doctor this morning, and I'm rushing this while Lizardo is in the shower, so forgive me if it is confused.

Looking at the existing stats for all the conflicts and casualty reports of all the wars we've fought since 1789, the ability of this nation's military to keep soldiers alive after a wound is staggering. By 1865, the number of dead versus the number of wounded was (on the Union side... no Confederate numbers are available) 140,000 dead to 281,000 wounded, or roughly 26% of every man that enlisted or was drafted into the Army or Navy. That's a one in four chance of coming out of the conflict without a combat injury... not good.

World War One saw the number of combat deaths at 53,400 and wounded at 204,000, with a total casualty rate of roughly 19%... still very high, but the dead to wounded ratio is much, much better, right?

World War Two saw the numbers of combat deaths at 292,000 and wounded at 671,000, but that total number of casualties accounted for only 4.1% of serving personnel, one of the lowest casualty rates of all combatant countries in the entire war. The USSR saw a rate of military casualties topping 38%... greater than the Union had in the Civil War, with an estimated Red Army death toll of between 8 and 10 MILLION men... and these are listed as "combat deaths", not disease, desertion or MIA.

Since 2002, we have had more than 2.7 million men and women cycle through the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, with combat operations continuing for very nearly that entire span of time, and have only seen 4,300 deaths and 38,000 wounded (don't mistake my meaning... that's a LOT of death and destruction... and I take nothing away from those that have given everything to accomplish our goals overseas). Unless my math is WAY off, that is a 1.6% casualty rate... only half a percent above the rate at which a peacetime Army in the US estimates its training and operational casualties at (training accidents and injuries, occupational hazards, etc).

In less than 100 years, we have gone from a rate of casualty (not rate of mortality, mind you) measured at one in five to less than one in fifty... that's damn impressive, isn't it?