Monday, January 30, 2006 - 6:49 AM EST

the american army dosn't no a thing about war they have lost no were near as much men they eny over countries in the world so don't give us your stupid facts about war,

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - 11:19 AM EST

Congratulations on some excellent graphical presentations of American and other war casualties.

I hope you now take the next step. Produce similar data for the current Iraq war to date, and put all the absolute numbers into perspective by giving us the data as percentages of population. e.g. one in so many thousand Americans serving in the military, one in so many killed, injured etc.

Every war-related death is an incalculable tragedy, but the current cost of American deaths and injuries in Iraq is miniscule.

In Korea, we proved Mao was correct when he called the U.S. a "paper tiger." We settled at the 38th Parallel and left the festering mess that now has produced a nuclear-armed tyranny that threatens the entire world.

I Viet Nam, with LBJ insisting we could have guns but surely would not give up butter, we reinforced the message.

In Desert Storm, we gave Saddam every right to believe he could survive and continue his bullying ways regardless of the superiority of U.S. military might.

Polls, a media obsessed with casualties (especially their own), an opposition party that sees our mistakes and casualties primarily as campaign fodder, and a whining population, we are proving that Osama ben Laden has us pegged. As soon as it gets difficult and we see some blood, we start talking about how we can get out, not what it will take to win meaningful victory. Soon we will be cutting and running.

It's time to adopt extreme pacifism--facing the ignoble fact that American civilians lack the courage to win a decisive victory and stick with it to a conclusion that promises a decent future. We haven't done that since World War II (ignoring cake walks like the one in Granada).

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 7:56 PM EDT

I'll go through your site in more detail, but I'm wondering where you're getting your stats from. I'm only comparing your WWII stats (thus far) but every other major source I can find puts the US military death rate at 400,000+. I see a few in the 300,000+ range. You've got it at 292,000. You have the total military and civilian deaths in WWII at 55M, I'm finding 60-62M every where else. Is that without Holocaust deaths (which at about 6M would put your figures in line). Just trying to figure out why you're a little lower than else where.
Thanks

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 - 8:57 PM EDT

Hi Andy,

I listed my references at the bottom of the page. If you have links to different figures, please send them my way. If the figures I have are incorrect I will certianly change them.

Thank you

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 11:48 PM EDT

I was wondering why you chose that particular estimate of Conferate casualties in the Civil War.  Is it simply a case of the concise chart of all major US wars in one easy to spot space?  Many sources I've seen have 94,000 battle deaths and about 260,000 total dead.  Here's a link that has plenty of estimates, it's from the same guy that maintains the Historical Atlas of the 20th Century, http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm#ACW.

Quality site, by the way. 

Friday, April 20, 2007 - 5:43 AM EDT

I see that you only used Union deaths for Civil War deaths.  Mostly when talking about the Civil War in general it refers to both the North and South, so I think you should also include Southern deaths as well, since they are considered Americans too. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - 1:11 AM EDT

Interesting graphs and data. I would like to see this updated as it is dated 2003. A lot has happened between then and now 2007. I have yet to see a comparison between the Vietnam War 1959-1975 in a week by week comparison or month by month from the beginning of both wars and how one could then see the progression of fatalities (all fatalities and WIA as the wounds then were unsurvivable and now when they are survivable-also many during Vietnam died on the way home and stateside  and were not "counted").

 Good luck with the update as it will be a lot work.

 Regular Army veteran  (1978)and then regular  Air Force veteran (1981) Registered Oregon Democrat

Sunday, February 24, 2008 - 8:10 PM EST

I feel that both the piechart and bar graphs illustrating losses in the Vietnam War are faulty in that American Forces participated in that war in support of the South Vietnamese and the basic nature of that war was civil between forces in South and North Vietnam.  Therefore, the losses should be represented by three wedges on your piechart and three bars on the "wall" graph.  Otherwise, I think your basic premise/graphing the losses of war is very effective.  I would also respond to the post at the top of the list when I submitted this one about the "little" losses American forces have incurred over time in the most non-judgemental way by saying that if lower US losses proves anything it is either that we are militarily superior to those whom we have fought or those we've fought have held human life in small regard.  This is, of course, is always tempered by where a war is fought putting those who lives in war zones at great risk.  Ultimately, intelligent well informed diplomacy and humanity trump war hands down. PtK

Sunday, June 8, 2008 - 4:58 PM EDT

I have read more than one source that indicates US WWII dead was

406,000 killed in combat.  Your lower figures are surprising. are they

correct? 

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 4:01 PM EDT

Obviously you think your better because you have lost more then the US?  War isn't a good thing in any way but is NECESSARY!!  No one is any better or worse for their numbers, but shows their involvement and impact.  War is hell, and the numbers only help some others to understand it.  I have lived it and it is an interesting read.

Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 6:20 AM EDT

Thankyou for the doing the work required to present the true cost of war...it is incredibly sobering!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - 12:07 PM EDT

I like the idea but your facts are off

WWI casualties around 110,000

WWII around 416,000

Veitnam War 53,000

Civil War 620,000

Not sure about the other wars but these are closer to the true casualties rates