“No. The numbers are meaningless unless you know the number of people in the military each year.”
Each number represents the lives of American service-people. Hardly “meaningless”.
This thread is not about percentages, ratios, or denominators. It’s about the NUMBER of American service-members lost each year.
Even you should be able to grasp that but you seem to have a hard time grasping anything that conflicts with your preconceived notions.
Well let’s see. In 1980 .11% of the people in the military died.
And in 2000 .05% of the people in the military died.
By ignoring the population, you have no idea of the “death rate.”
In looking at statistics over time one must look at percentages. That allows for an apples to apples comparison over different time periods. I think that is all he was saying.