Battlefield medical care has increased dramatically since the former wars.  That's why we have 30,000 plus wounded soldiers.  Injured is better than dead though. 

I was surprised how few died in the Revolutionary War and am shocked to see how many died in the Civil War. 

It just makes me sad that we haven't moved past killing each other to solve our differences. 

I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but for the revolutionary war:

"An estimated 25,000 American Revolutionaries died during active military service. About 8,000 of these deaths were in battle; the other 17,000 deaths were from disease, including about 8,000 who died while prisoners of war. The number of Revolutionaries seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000. The total American military casualty figure was therefore as high as 50,000.^[20]"

I think your Civil war figure is a bit low. That was the Union side. Total was 618,000 (up to some estimates of 700,000).



Put that in perspective. There were only a few million in the colonies during the revolutionary war (some estimates put it at 2.5 million). So 25000 was a large chunk. There were more during the civil war, but only about 31 million Americans. 6 or 7 hundred thousand is 2+% of that population. And that was almost entirely of the father age. It basically wiped out a generation of males.

Actually, only 140 U.S. military personel died in the Iraq war. The rest were killed during our occupation.

There is a link at the top of the page to show where I got my stats from.

True, but death is death.

Man has been killing his fellow man since Cain and Able.. nothing has changed except we have gotten better at it.

This biggest problem with our actions in Iraq have been strategies, or lack thereof. Far fewer deaths would have resulted if there was better planning and execution.

Long before Rumsfeld got canned, we had some success with "clear, hold, and build" -- our current strategy with the surge. Rice wanted to widen that strategy but Rumsfeld was too hard headed and only wanted to stay the course, which at the time consisted only of an exit strategy.

And of course, much of the blame can be placed on the shoulders of L. Paul Bremmer and the dissolusion of the Iraqi army. Sending 100s of thousands of armed, unemployed men into the streets is obviously a recipe for disaster.

And then, of course, one must also consider the 4,417 deaths under Clinton during peacetime.

Thank you Dr. Guy for the insight on the US Civil War. As a Civil War buff the numbers just didn’t match. As of this date more US soldiers (both north and south) died during that war then all the wars combined (that the US has been in). The final toll of US soldiers and citizens was in the neighborhood of 1.1 million people. The number of northern soldiers death toll was 360,000 give or take, and the south was approximately 250,00 death.

There were battles during the Civil war where up to 6,000 to 10,000 men had died in just a couple of days worth of fighting.

Lee

Here's something else to put into perspective: 

82476 - 89996 ( http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ )

151,000 - 1,033,000 (highest estimate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#See_also

Anywhere from 30,000 - 650,000 http://www.npr.org/news/specials/tollofwar/tollofwarmain.html

 

Oh and Mod, I disagree, ALL life is precious. Personally I don't differentiate.

You should visit Virginia. Half the state is reserved for Civil war Battlefields!

SilentPoet,

Bogus numbers do NOT help put things "into perspective".

The Iraq Body Count Web site is fine and they have an essay about why the other high numbers are bogus.

But even with Iraq Body Count's (probably true) numbers, there is not much perspective. Iraqis have been killing each other before and after the invasion. Withdrawing American troops would only return Iraq to the old days (when more people were killed).

All life is precious, indeed. That's why saving American lives by refusing to stand by allies might not be the right thing to do. But oddly enough it is the proposal most often made by those who don't value American lives as higher than others'.

 

We have been looking for the "perfect" war for some time. Fact is that this war cost very few lives compared to all other wars. It could have been done better, but it would be a quantitative difference, not a qualitative difference.

Fact is that George W. Bush's war was already executed in the most live-preserving way and the numbers show it.