Peace time war deaths exceed war time deaths in Iraq in some years

Fox News:

More active members of the military died during two years of peacetime in the early 1980s than died during a two-year period of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report.

The Congressional Research Service, which compiled war casualty statistics from the Revolutionary War to present day conflicts, reported that 4,699 members of the U.S. military died in 1981 and '82 — a period when the U.S. had only limited troop deployments to conflicts in the Mideast. That number of deaths is nearly 900 more than the 3,800 deaths during 2005 and '06, when the U.S. was fully committed to large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CRS, which is the public policy research arm of Congress, issued its findings in the June report "American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics."

FOXNews.com, in re-examining the findings, found that — surprising as it may be — there were more active duty deaths in some years of peacetime than there were in some years of wartime.

Military analysts say the current decrease in military casualties, even during a time of war, is due to a campaign by the Armed Forces to reduce accidents and improve medical care on the battlefield.

"It's safer to be in the military because your accidental death rate has gone down; it's safer to be in the military because if you get wounded, you'll probably survive," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

"Getting killed on the battlefield is one way that people in the military wind up dying, but it's not the main way."

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The combat related deaths are actually lower than the total count for the war because some people are still dying in accidents and from disease. What this report demonstrates is that the angst of the anti war left is not really about concern about casualties, but is really about a policy they do not like. It also makes a mockery out of statements like that of Joe Klein of Time that the war has been a "disaster." That is another word the left has abused by its redefinition.