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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 16, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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Medics go where all the trouble is. In Vietnam the death rate was very high. One tactic they have used in Iraq is to set off a roadside bomb, injure someone, then set off another when the help arrives.
Stay safe Michelle, I send you my best wishes.
John
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 12:42am PT
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As of today, 4,091 U.S. soldiers had died in five years of war in Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/16list.html?_r=1&ref=worldspecial&oref=slogin Probably between five and ten times as many will have had injuries requiring hospitalization.
The armed forces certainly track things like fatality and injury rates per unit. It seems likely that they have a lot of statistics and analysis as to such matters.
Overall, several hundred thousand U.S. soldiers or more must have served in Iraq by now, some on multiple tours. Nominally that translates into about a 1% chance that any one soldier would have been killed, and a 5 - 10% chance of injury. It's clearly much more complicated than that - certain areas, units, and jobs may be riskier than others.
It's possible that the military and politicians aren't telling us everything, in that many deaths and injuries may in effect have been privatized, along with the related services.
As of last week, 85 Canadians had died in Afghanistan, out of a total of about 10,000 who have served at least one tour there.
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Dogtown Climber
Trad climber
The Idyllwild City dump
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:09am PT
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F*#king Peace Nick, Neo-hippies. get your own Culture.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:35am PT
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Moosie: Medics go where all the trouble is. In Vietnam the death rate was very high
The Army death rate for combat medics in Vietnam was around 3%, or almost 1100 fatalities in about 31,000 total deaths.
2% Combat Engineers
2% Armor
4% for Artillery
6% for Aviation
70% for Infantry
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:39am PT
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3 percent of total deaths, or 3 percent of medics?
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:42am PT
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Vietnam FACT: MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions. Over 900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). The average time lapse between wounding to hospitalization was less than one hour. As a result, less than one percent of all Americans wounded who survived the first 24 hours died. (VHPA Databases)
That there is pretty impressive.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:49am PT
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Helicopters certainly changed survival rates of wounded.
3 percent of total means we would need to know how many medics served in country to know how dangerous that particular field was. I have a fair number of friends who served in Vietnam and they all have told me over the years that it was dangerous being a medic. They always have to go where the most intense shooting is, at least if they are a combat medic.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:52am PT
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"The Army death rate for combat medics in Vietnam was around 3%, or almost 1100 fatalities in about 31,000 total deaths."
I can't figure that out. Does that mean that 3% of all combat medics in Vietnam died, or that 3% of all those who died were combat medics?
Total U.S. deaths in the Vietnam War were about 58,200, with another 2,000 missing in action.
I wouldn't doubt for a moment that there's a pretty direct correlation between time spent on the front line and fatality rate. Somewhere I read that stretcher bearers in World War I, who were often conscientious objectors, had a high casualty rate.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Jun 16, 2008 - 01:53am PT
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The numbers given on this site are reflected all over the web, so there is a chance they might be somewhat accurate:
http://www.landscaper.net/timelin.htm
Interesting stuff anyway... the MYTHS section is quite an eyeopener.
Mighty Hiker edit: as I understand it.... there were 31,000 total deaths endured by the Army.... 3% of those that died were combat medics, so you get 1100+/- dead medics out of the 31,000 total deaths. For all we know it could have been 100%, if none were left......
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Dogtown Climber
Trad climber
The Idyllwild City dump
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Jun 16, 2008 - 02:12am PT
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243 Medal of honor winners Vietnam.Medics made up more of these ranks than any other duty.
My brother was a Dust Off pilot Vietnam, shot down a bunch very dangerous.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 02:26am PT
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Thanks, Russ. Had another look at the figures. About 38,200 Army deaths, 14,840 Marines. The source is wikipedia, but they cite the U.S. National Archives as the source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties#United_States_Armed_Forces
The National Archives site has a lot of information, at http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html, as does the Department of Defence site - http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/vietnam.pdf
The latter notes 30,963 hostile deaths in the Army, but another 7,261 non-hostile deaths (presumably accidents and illness) and 561 MIAs etc. I'm pretty sure that's typical of the military - there are a significant proportion of non-combat deaths, but they're on active service, and it's part of the territory. (My uncle was one such, in 1945.)
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Jun 16, 2008 - 02:40am PT
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Here is an interesting fact I heard today.....
More Marines now die in motorcycle accidents while off the base, than in combat each month in Iraq.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 16, 2008 - 03:35am PT
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i wonder if more die each month by suicide (relating to PTSD) than in combat?
wonder where you heard that stat?
(gee, maybe from somebody who was trying to make iraq sound "safe"?)
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 10:58am PT
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Those are normally all effective tools when not wielded by treasonous and incompetent cowards who had all evaded the draft so no nothing about military operations. Further, they have undercut returning Veterans at every single opportunity, squandered our military might, corrupted the Constitution and balance of power, and handed Tehran and Beijing significant geopolitical advantage at the cost of about two trillion dollars. In 2000, OBL and the Chinese leadership couldn't have written a dream script for the next eight years this good.
Well worth repeating. I haven't even read all this thread, but I'll bet dollars to donuts no neocon apologist has answered this. They never do.
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Russ Walling
Social climber
Out on the sand.... man.....
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Jun 16, 2008 - 11:08am PT
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Matt writes: wonder where you heard that stat?
(gee, maybe from somebody who was trying to make iraq sound "safe"?)
It is just a fact Matt. Live with it. It must just burn you up that more Americans aren't dying over there, huh?
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 11:30am PT
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Russ said;
"It is just a fact Matt. Live with it. It must just burn you up that more Americans aren't dying over there, huh"?
See Russ it is comments like that I find so bothersome.
How can you make such an illogical connection?
Or are you just a trolling provacateur?
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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Jun 16, 2008 - 11:36am PT
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or just an ass?
yes russ, that's exactly what i wish for every day.
i scower the web, just hoping to see young promising life extinguished.
...and all of you "to hell with brown people" types have all the patriotism wrapped up while we liberals just want to tax hard working simple folk like yourself while we live on the dole, do drugs, impregnate teens so we can buy them abortions, and help communist china prove that the soviets got raw deal.
edit- btw your lame statistic is, more than anything, a commentary on how FEW soldiers we actually have over there, relative to how many active duty personnel there are in total, (and you can ask the folks in iowa how using their national guard troops and equipment has impacted them in their time of need).
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dirtbag
climber
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Jun 16, 2008 - 11:48am PT
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Well, you can also say every marine will die some day. So what?
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Jun 16, 2008 - 12:25pm PT
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philo:...Russ...are you just a trolling provacateur?
New to the Internets are you?
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kev
climber
CA
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Jun 16, 2008 - 02:30pm PT
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Wow Russ,
You've really kept Matt going.
Russ have you ever thought of linking your buy Russ a beer link to a thread?
Also someone (a liberal not that that's a bad thing) called iraq
a 'godforsaken pit' and it seems to read as if they were implying it always was. If so, does that mean they think it was uninhabitable before we got there...
kev
Also why isn't the liberal crowd screaming about the Congo, and of course Lebanon, and what about Afghanistan? Any opinions on Columbia, Sri Lanka, and lets not forget our buddy Hugo...
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