73,846 U.S. Troops Dead - Iraq War

reply to post by forsakenwayfarer

I don't think that anyone spoke of conspiracy. The OP is simply pointing out a fact that moste people don't know. Yes lots of people die everyday. But most folks in the armed forces are young and in good health so I reitterate. 70k deaths is a staggering figure. Your seeming dismissal of this information as irrelevant and you sarcasm about conspiracy is not needed here.

reply to post by jhamende



Anyway, you can't refute my assertion that people die, and enlisted men are of no difference. So you attack my presentation of the -facts-. This is not something that 'people don't know' - or should know. It is intentionally mis-represented data! IE the fostering of an IGNORANT viewpoint.

A viewpoint for some reason you want to share in?

reply to post by jhamende


when these stats come out they include not just young and healthy but also old people that have retired and were in service during the first gulf war.

I think you guys better check these numbers -- last I heard there were only 1.4 million troops in the U.S. armed services.

Now if 73,000 are dead and 1.6million filed for disability thats a couple more than the total 1.4 million in the combined services.

Also, the pdf file mentions the following "veteratans health care act of 1992"

The Veterans Health Care Act of 1992 - Public Law 102-585
Health Care Financing Review, Summer, 1993

reply to post by ProfTom


You act as if the military and it's members are a static, closed system.

As more file for disability and the like, more enlist to replenish the lost numbers.

Simple logic, come on now.

Thats alot of dead people, well 73,846 to be picky, R.I.P all of them. Im sure there will be more before the US pulls out.

ProTo

If you are not in America i can understand how you can believe 73,846 troops have died in Iraq. If you are an American, how, HOW can you believe that? What i am about to say is not ment to be mean spirited...if you believe 73,846 troops have died in active duty in the last couple of years do yourself a favor. After reading this post log of off ATS look for any social club/church group/Community college class that interest you and then log off and go out and meet some people in the real world. One of the math people here help me out...73,846 people with parents, grandparents, significant others, kids, brothers, sisters, cousins, best friends, etc that would be HUNDRED of THOUSANDS of people that lost a loved one in Iraq in the last couple of years. People would know if it was that big of an American bloodbath.

I am not in the military but if i was i would be offended by this post. To imply that the American military personal would ABADONDED around 70,000 fallen comrades families is umm... balderdash.

Erm, i got the impression that it was Gulf War only, not War in Iraq.
If it's Gulf War only, that's alot of people.

When the Gulf War ended, alot of the people who said they thought they might have Gulf War Illness, were kicked out of the military. They became vets, of course, but many of them developed serious illnesses and died.

That's a controversial topic, in and of itself.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
Its not unrealistic to assume 70k + are dead... the US has been very tightlipped about procedures and stats
'' we dont do body counts '' I think applies more so to the allied deaths than enemy.......

Actually,

Comprehension of what is written in the reports explains everything clearly...

...and your attempt to twist these numbers into something other than what is clearly represented in the pdf link makes it appear that you have not completely understood the data in the report.

It is probably wishful thinking that you would go to the effort of comprehending what the pdf file actually states...

...when your other sources say what you WANT to hear...

...never mind the fact that they are completely sensationalized.

Originally posted by wardk28
I think some people are skipping the posts about the 73,846 deaths being over a 17 year period and not during the Iraq War. Repeat all deaths not from the Iraq War.

They hear what they want to hear. The sky has to be falling, it just has to be.

I'm not even buying 73K over 17 years. We had about 100 combat fatalities in Desert Storm, and under 4000 in the GWOT. Where are the other 10K combat casualties coming from? 55K non combat sounds high too, as most of the folks that have gotten out would be in their 20s and 30s rather than in their 40s or 50s, as a lot more serve for a few years, than retire. That's an awful lot of car wrecks, suicides, and other accidents. It's true that there were folks that got weird illnesses after Desert Storm, but 10s of thousands dying? Sounds a little dubious to me, and I've been on active duty for 15 yrs.

OK, one more time.

The deaths listed in the document are those of all individuals who have ever served in the US military since Gulf War I up to the beginning of Gulf War II. The deaths include combat deaths but none of the statistics indicate how anyone died and the report does not indicate 10k combat deaths. They simply split the deaths between people who served in the conflict, those who were deployed but were not involved in the conflict period, and those who never went anywhere near the Gulf but there is nothing to indicate if the deaths were combat related either directly or otherwise.

The 78k deaths come from a total service population of around 6.7 million individuals which is a mortality rate of around 1% over a seventeen year period. Is that significant? Don't know, you'd need to ask an actuary.

After reading the report with any care you are forced to the inevitable conclusion that the "gentleman" who wrote the original article was fully aware of the meaning of the data and has deliberately distorted it for effect.

...and he probably complains about Government lies. Oh the irony.

reply to post by Agit8dChop


godlikeproductions? the mal/spamware nexus of the internet? puh-lease. the mods there are all psychos in need of anger management.

Originally posted by timeless test
OK, one more time.

The deaths listed in the document are those of all individuals who have ever served in the US military since Gulf War I up to the beginning of Gulf War II. The deaths include combat deaths but none of the statistics indicate how anyone died and the report does not indicate 10k combat deaths. They simply split the deaths between people who served in the conflict, those who were deployed but were not involved in the conflict period, and those who never went anywhere near the Gulf but there is nothing to indicate if the deaths were combat related either directly or otherwise.

The 78k deaths come from a total service population of around 6.7 million individuals which is a mortality rate of around 1% over a seventeen year period. Is that significant? Don't know, you'd need to ask an actuary.

After reading the report with any care you are forced to the inevitable conclusion that the "gentleman" who wrote the original article was fully aware of the meaning of the data and has deliberately distorted it for effect.

...and he probably complains about Government lies. Oh the irony.

Im quoting this because people really need to read and understand what we are saying.

reply to post by BlueRaja


If i'm reading the report correctly then these 73,000 deaths are over a total population of 6.8 million people. This is around 1.1% of the total.

The US death rate for 2004 was 0.82% (Source). If you take away the deaths in combat (estimate 4300) then you get a total 69,346 deaths which is 1.02%, which is a bit higher than the average US death rate. You make a good point about the age of those servicemen though, according to the source above the death rate for the 25-64 age group is around 0.4% so the veterans reported death rate (not including combat deaths) is more than double that.

While looking some of this up, I also came across the 2002 report (here). The same table in this report states only 40,747 deaths against a total of 5.5 million (0.74%). I might be wrong but doesn't this mean 33,099 additional deaths in 5 years? That's coming up on double the number of deaths from the first 12 years combined and a death rate of just over 2% in the last five years.

I don't know how accurate any of that is, there's never a statistician around when you need one.

The thread title is misleading though.

reply to post by mr-lizard


Game on, newt boy!

We are in Iraq currently because in after WW1, you Brits made Kuwait a separate country under your protection in the classic Roman tactic of pitting one old tribe against another. Your gov't sent troops to Kuwait in 1961 to protect BP managed oil fields. If anyone is to blame for the current set of conflicts through out the Persian Gulf and South Asia, it's the Brits!

Well I'm British and I'm only too eager to take full responsibility for anything immoral or unethical I've done, but I'm certainly not accountable for anything our corrupt government has done past, present or future. Anyway I wasn't even alive then and that probably applies to most of the other UK members here on ATS.

There's nothing like passing the buck and playing the blame game. Fact - both America and Britain are directly responsible for the state the Middle East is currently in and the right solution is to stop interfering in Middle Eastern affairs as our track record for bringing peace and security to the region is beyond a joke. Time to get out and leave the people of the Middle East to their own devices. But hell will probably freeze over first.

Well since we are just throwing numbers around...

Everyone in the military will DIE and millions with prior military service are already DEAD! I know this sounds like big numbers but it is 100% true. I also think it is Bush's fault too.

reply to post by kindred


My rant is aimed at those who have so quickly forgotten the nation's role in creating the mess they've made in the world. Unless something has changed since I woke up this morning, the gov't's of UK and the USA are made up of elected officials who are supposed to represent the will of the people who elected them. Oh, wait a second, that's just a dream.

Our politicians are selected for us by their thuggish corporate masters who run the economy of the world like Mafia Dons. We don't have free market capitalism, we've got corporate fascism. They dictate laws to regulate the markets to insure their profits by raiding the taxpayers pockets.

This is getting way off topic.

The OP sources are crap. So why comment any further?

OK well now that most of you realize that the 75 thousand figure comes from Desert storm to present day you need to realize that allot of our men and women are dieing of Depleted Uranium poisoning and many people have gone outside of the VA to get treatment because they are being ignored by the government.
A buddy of mine served in Desert storm and shortly after he started suffering from Leukemia type symptoms and it is still affecting him today in a bad way.