US War Deaths per Day by Conflict (War, Battle) and How Iraq Compares

These should be in order chronologically and it’s admittedly a little weighted toward the Pacific Theater of World War II. In case you don’t want to read to the bottom, Iraq: 3,973 deaths in 1,806 days, 2.2 deaths/day.

Event US Deaths Duration Deaths/Day Lexington & Concord (Revolution) 50 1 day 50.0 Estimated death count (US only). Battle of Saratoga (Revolution) 800 2 days 400.0 Estimated death count (US only, obviously). Battle of New Orleans (1812) 37 2 days 18.5 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). Mexican-American War 1,733 730 days 2.4 Wikipedia doesn’t have such a good read on this one. Deaths include only killed-in-action combattants on the US side. Bull Run/Manassas I (Civil) 847 1 day 847.0 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). Battle of Shiloh (Civil) 3,482 2 days 1,741.0 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). Bull Run/Manassas II (Civil) 3,000 3 days 1,000.0 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). Death total is estimated. Antietam/Sharpsburg (Civil) 3,654 1 days 3,654.0 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). Battle of Gettysburg (Civil) 7,863 3 days 2,621.0 Includes deaths on both sides (Union and Confederate). San Juan Hill (Span-Am) 124 1 day 124.0 Estimated death count (US only, obviously). Battle of Belleau Wood (WW1) 1,811 26 days 69.7 One of the most important battles in US Marine Corps lore, spawned the (reputed) quotes of “Retreat? Hell, we just got here!” and “Come on, you sons of bitches, you want to live forever?”. It’s also cited as the source of the nickname “devil dogs” often applied to US Marines (as German soldiers purportedly began to refer to the marines as Teufelhunde). Battle of Midway (WW2) 307 4 days 76.8 Includes only US deaths. Battle of Guadalcanal (WW2) 7,099 187 days 38.0 Includes all Allied deaths and nearly all of those were US. The majority of deaths were inflicted on naval personnel (4,911) — the US didn’t have the most universally brilliant admirals at the onset of WW2. Battle of Tarawa (WW2) 990 4 days 247.5 Back when people had still heard of “Tarawa”, it was known as “Bloody Tarawa”. There was an Academy Award-winning short made about it, With the Marines at Tarawa. Invasion of Normandy (WW2) 1,465 40 days 36.6 (Commonly referred to as “D-Day”, despite the fact that D-Day is a generic term. Oh well.) Deaths for all Allied combatants was around 2,700 (includes British and Canadians).As the Normandy Invasion wasn’t exactly a discreet action, I’m estimating the end to have been, as Wikipedia suggests, “mid-July” (I used July 15, 1944). Battle of Saipan (WW2) 2,949 25 days 118.0 Includes only US killed-in-action (not missing). Battle of Peleliu (WW2) 2,336 72 days 86.5 Note to military planners: don’t give an invasion a name like “Operation Stalemate” again. Battle of the Bulge (WW2) 19,276 41 days 470.1 Includes only US deaths. Battle of Iwo Jima (WW2) 6,821 35 days 194.9 Most iconic battle of the Pacific; but it was neither the most “intense” in terms of death rate (Tarawa), nor in terms of number of deaths (Okinawa). Still, 1.7x the number of deaths in Iraq in less than 1/50th the time. Battle of Okinawa (WW2) 12,513 98 days 127.7 Deaths figure is actually “dead or missing” and includes all Allied combatants (although there were few non-American combatants involved among Allied forces), but no civilians. Korean War 36,516 1,128 days 32.4 Includes US combatants killed-in-action only. Do people even remember that there *was* a Korean war? Vietnam War 58,209 3,353 days 17.4 Includes only US killed-in-action (not missing). Gulf War I 358 210 days 1.7 Deaths include only killed-in-action and are for all allied combatants. Iraq War & Occupation 3,973 1,806 days 2.2 Duration and deaths are as of March 1, 2008 and include only US military deaths. “Start Date” for Iraq war considered to be March 20, 2003. If this is the current generation’s Vietnam, then the current generation is getting off very, very easily.

Also worth considering is that the US was a much smaller country (population-wise) in these earlier conflicts. The US population in 1940 was 132 million (less than half of today’s estimated population of 303 million). The US population in 1860 (just prior to the Civil War) was only 31 million.

If you need a finer point put on this: the number of American troops killed in our (almost) five-year adventure in Iraq is about the same as the number of American troops who died in the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg) IN ONE DAY. Given that today’s US population is just over 9x that of the 1860 population, the current Iraq conflict has about 1/15,000th the relative death intensity of the Battle of Antietam (= 1 / ((3654.0 deaths/day / 2.2 deaths/day ) * (303.1 million population / 33.4 million population)) = 1/15,072 ). Or, other way around, the Battle of Antietam was relatively 15,000 times as bad as the current Iraq war (in terms of death rate and impact on the relative population).

If we wanted to go deeper, I could figure out what the death rate for civilians between 18 and 25 has been during the years of the Iraq war and discount the rate accordingly — but I’d also have to do that for the other battles and wars and I’ve spent enough of my Saturday on this already.

My point: I think the media should be required to report all of the above any time they report the number of deaths in the Iraq War+Occupation to date. Even better, news consumers should DEMAND this (not that they ever would). But perspective should matter. The rational reason Iraq is a crappy situation has more to do with how we’re destroying our own economy for the sake of making everyone in the world hate us than it does with the ferocity of the fighting and dying. As war deaths go, Iraq’s been relatively gentle. Our country should be making its foreign policy decisions based on clear objectives, rational analysis, and items of statistical significance, not on the media’s unwillingness to disseminate reason.

Thanks,

bkd

(Virtually all figures are from Wikipedia and are sourced there.)

Related