Come ON now...how can libs rant and rave that "Bush Sends our kids to DIE" when sometimes MORE soldiers die in peacetime than today.

More active members of the military died during two years of peacetime in the early 1980s than died during a two-year period of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report.

The Congressional Research Service, which compiled war casualty statistics from the Revolutionary War to present day conflicts, reported that 4,699 members of the U.S. military died in 1981 and '82 — a period when the U.S. had only limited troop deployments to conflicts in the Mideast. That number of deaths is nearly 900 more than the 3,800 deaths during 2005 and '06, when the U.S. was fully committed to large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CRS, which is the public policy research arm of Congress, issued its findings in the June report "American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics."

FOXNews.com, in re-examining the findings, found that — surprising as it may be — there were more active duty deaths in some years of peacetime than there were in some years of wartime.

Military analysts say the current decrease in military casualties, even during a time of war, is due to a campaign by the Armed Forces to reduce accidents and improve medical care on the battlefield.

"It's safer to be in the military because your accidental death rate has gone down; it's safer to be in the military because if you get wounded, you'll probably survive," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

"Getting killed on the battlefield is one way that people in the military wind up dying, but it's not the main way."

According to the raw figures, of the 2,380 members of the military who died during active duty in 1981, 1,524 were killed in accidents, 145 by homicide, 457 by illness and 241 from self-inflicted wounds. That compares with the 1,942 killed in 2005; of that number, 632 died from accidents, 739 from hostile action, 49 from homicide, 281 from illness, 150 from self-inflicted wounds and 72 whose causes of death were still pending. Eleven deaths in ’81 and 19 deaths in ’05 were classified as “undetermined.”

More at link:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311644,00.html


[edit] Notes:

Total Military Deaths, by year - since 1992

1992: 1,293
1993: 1,213
1994: 1,075
1995: 1,040
1996: 974
1997: 817
1998: 827
1999: 796

Total: 8032

Total deaths from Hostile Action since 2001:
2001: 3
2002: 18
2003: 344
2004: 739
2005: 739
2006: 753
2007: Unknown tally

Total: 2596+