Life, Death and Football

Going in harm’s way. When all is said and done, serving in uniform is the willingness to do this.
 
"West Point graduates are bearing a disproportionate number of combat deaths in the global war on terror when compared with previous conflicts. Some 100 West Pointers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since the attacks of 9/11, roughly 2 percent of all combat deaths in those campaigns.

That’s 42 times higher than among Union forces in the Civil War and 11 times greater than in World War II, according to published reports.

But numbers often betray the truth:"

The author is correct. Numbers often betray the truth. His inference--intended or not--is that WPers are "disproportionately" sacrificing or putting themselves in harms way. That is certainly true in proportion to the general population, but in proportion to enlisted personnel or officers from other commissioning sources, I would take issue.

Rather than exploring his dubious statistical conclusions, I'd rather consider those people profiled in the story and think about where they came from and what WP meant to them and their families.
 
Direct correlation with more WP Grad's branching Combat Arms? More than likely.
 
Many of the non combat arms saw casualties in Iraqistan. IEDs didn’t discriminate.
 
UHBlackhawk said:
Many of the non combat arms saw casualties in Iraqistan. IEDs didn’t discriminate.
Click to expand...
While all the branches of service take casualties- there is a very big difference between the casualty rates of Combat Arms units and Combat Support (CS) & Combat Service and Support (CSS) units - and a pretty significant difference as well between junior to mid-grade Enlisted personnel and Officers. The link below breaks out Army casualties through 2012 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
bruno said:
While all the branches of service take casualties- there is a very big difference between the casualty rates of Combat Arms units and Combat Support (CS) & Combat Service and Support (CSS) units - and a pretty significant difference as well between junior to mid-grade Enlisted personnel and Officers. The link below breaks out Army casualties through 2012 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Click to expand...
You probably need to combine the CSS and CS numbers to get an accurate comparison. While the C numbers were higher, when I was over there ('03-'05 timeframe), the combined CS/CSS percentages were pretty close to the C numbers. The graph makes the difference look larger, but it was a pretty steady .3% for CS/CSS versus about .4-.5% for C troops. That was about what I observed and is statistically pretty close. The greatest disparity was 2010 when it was about .7% for C, but again about .3% for C/CSS.
 
www.stripes.com

US-backed force says it captured suspects in bombing that killed 4 Americans

Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon M. Kent, Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jonathan R. Farmer, Defense Intelligence Agency civilian Scott A. Wirtz and interpreter Ghadir Taher were among 16 people killed in the January incident at a restaurant in northern Syria.
www.stripes.com

These deaths illustrate the folly of inserting statistics into the discussion. No officers and two of the four aren't even counted in the statistics.

thefallen.militarytimes.com

Search Result| Military Times

Honoring those who fought and died in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn
thefallen.militarytimes.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top