Am I understanding this correctly? Military deaths are actually lower under George W. Bush during wartime than they have been under all these other presidents, including during peacetime???!!!!
I don’t want to mislead anyone. In the document I referenced, only one year of Carter is covered (his last), whereas 8 years each for Reagan and Clinton, and four years each for the two Bushes are covered. Note that 2005 was NOT included. The numbers I posted were the yearly averages for each President – just for the data in the document.
The result was that Clinton’s average for the total number of deaths was the lowest, while George W Bush’s was the next lowest (this number would go up if 2005 were included, but his “ranking” by average total deaths probably wouldn’t change). Carter’s last year was the highest.
Also, note in my previous post that George W. Bush’s average deaths due to hostile action is the highest.
CJ posted some more data of this type on his milblog:
http://www.soldiersperspective.us/index.php?paged=2
This is the average number of combat deaths for each major war in the past hundred years or so (his post includes the total number of months and deaths plus some marvelous perspectives). Draw your own conclusions…
War Av. Deaths
Per month
WWI 2816
WWII 6639
Korea 909
Vietnam 526
Gulf War I 148
Iraq 55