I cannot imagine the tragedy of losing a loved one to war. Though honorable, the loss can never be replaced.
As U. S. combat deaths in the Iraq War approach 1,000 I am led to wonder: what is an acceptable level of deaths for wars generally and how do you weigh this against whatever is trying to be accomplished? Are you a pacifist and consider the title of this thread to be an oxymoron?
4,435 - Revolutionary War* 2,260 - War of 1812* 13,283 - Mexican War 558,052 – Civil War (Combined Union & Confederate) 2,446 – Spanish-American War 116,708 – World War I 407,316 – World War II 33,651 – Korean War* 58,168 – Vietnam 293 – Gulf War
*For these wars, deaths not occurring in combat are unknown. Deaths for other wars include disease, accidents, prisoner of war losses, etc.
US Military Deaths 1980 - 2002 might also prove useful. Note that this is a .pdf file, requiring Acrobat reader. The print is sufficiently small that reading glasses may also be required.
Though certainly not excluded, this topic is not meant to be about the War in Iraq.
Posts: 7655 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
The consolation in losing a loved one in war is that they died fighting for a noble cause.Observation over the years around this area (Cambridge) of my own relations and of other survivors and the families of those who lost relatives in the two world wars suggests a very marked distinction between those conflicts. Those who lost loved ones in World War II console themselves that their men died fighting fascism and to save Britain from invasion and conquest. Those of World War I commonly asked still why their men died; it's not much help asking the historians either,some ninety years on; neither they nor survivors could look back at the loss as one that was justified.
In the Great War the British suffered over 900,000 killed, 20,000 of them on the first day of the Somme (July 1st 1916); the Germans and Russians each over 1.7 million, the French over 1.3 million. All of them died in vain. It is that which long bore heaviest on the survivors. Hearing the proud old men talking of it is very distressing; that fact had slowly dawned on them long ago. The numbers though great would not have mattered quite so much were the war a war of reason.Each loss is to one family and whether it be multiplied a hundred or a millionfold all loss is bearable if it be validated.
It may be that, that belief, which causes such distress and such anger for and against when Vietnam is discussed.On Iraq? Well, who knows what time and events will bring?
It seems to me that, if a war can be justified, it is justified regardless of lives lost. If a war can not be justified, one life lost is unacceptable. Of course, that is taking a moral view. A practical view is that, if a nation has an acceptable limit, and exits a war after that limit is reached, the signal sent to the next enemy is a dangerous one. The next enemy merely needs to make the losses great, at whatever cost to them. Both viewpoints come to the same conclusion, that a nation should be certain of the need for a war, that the war is a justified one. It may be just a coincidence that the two largest losses om the list that Fuse provided came from wars that were, in my opinion, justified.
Posts: 16773 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
And thanks, 'fuse, for the information. I have wondered for some time now how "peacetime" military deaths compared to times of conflict. Although, from the statistics you linked to, it appears that great strides have been made in keeping our soldiers alive, it would seem that one's chances of dying in modern warfare are not much greater than being killed in a training exercise or some other "peaceable" operation. Not a laudable statistic by any means. But an interesting one nonetheless.
And you can skip the reading glasses by clicking the "+" button in Acrobat.
I can tell you that from a Commander or a family member's point of view that one loss is one too many. However by the same token in the same community the loss is reconciled as the price to be paid regardless of whether the cause is justified or not in the minds of the public.
