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Memorial Day Honors
Just wanted TPM readers to take a moment this weekend to remember the war dead. These Americans lost their lives defending their country in too many wars—just and unjust. Many volunteered, others were drafted. Let’s remember these fathers, sons, uncles, brothers, and more recently mothers, sisters, daughters, and aunts. These numbers should remind us that our government should be damn sure before it sends its children off to war. Peace to the families of those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Source: U.S. Army Military History Institute, civilian
fatalities not included (I hope this list converts)
War of Independence (1775-1783) 25,000
Quasi-War (1798-1800) 20
Barbary Wars (1801-1815) 35
War of 1812
(1812-1815) 20,000
1st Seminole War
(1817-1818) 30
2nd Seminole War
(1835-1842) 1,500
Mexican-American War (1846-1848) 13,283
3rd Seminole War (1855-1858) 26
Civil War (1861-1865) 623,026
Indian Wars (1865-1898) 919
Spanish-American War (1898) 2,446
Philippine War (1898-1902) 4,196
Boxer Rebellion (1900-1901) 37
Mexican Revolution (1914-1919) 35
Haiti Occupation (1915-1934) 146
World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,708
World War 2 (1941-1945) 407,316
Korean War (1950-1953) 36,914
Vietnam War (1964-1973) 58,169
El Salvador (1980-1992) 20
Beirut (1982-1984) 266
Persian Gulf Support (1987-1988) 39
Invasion of Grenada (1983) 19
Invasion of Panama (1989) 40
Gulf War (1991) 269
Somalia (1992-1993) 43
Bosnia 1995 12
Afghanistan (2002-2008) 482
Iraqi (2003-2008) 3,975
Comments (6)
They're not children. They're men and women, and we should be proud of them.
May 25, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy Glad, I knew we could agree on something! I was speaking metaphorically, "children of America." And they are/were someone's child. I have one in Afghanistan right now. He's a man, but he's my child.
May 25, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was a time when I hated Bush so much that I would picture him as a little kid, just to be able to see him as a human being instead of a complete monster. My son wanted to be a Marine and he got to be one in Desert Storm. We worried about him every day, but we never doubted that fighting was what he wanted to do. The soldiers I feel sorry for are the Guard and Reserve who are the draftees of this insane occupation. I don't think they planned to end up going to Iraq, some of them more than once. If my son or daughter were in the Guard and got killed in Iraq, I think I'd go insane.
May 25, 2008 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know how you felt--I feel it every day. My son graduated from West Point in 2007, so he knew what he was signing up for, but he started as a freshman before the war began--so that was an unpleasant turn of events. I agree that this is incredibly hard for the Guard and Reserve. Funny, I always think of Bush as a child. Having him as my son's commander in chief makes me sick to my stomach.
May 26, 2008 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are a million vets to honor today. One of them, Christopher Delapino, was part of a Med-Vac helicopter team in Vietnam. To pay his younger brother's college tuition, Chris "re-upped" for a second tour to get what was then a $10K signing bonus. Chris and his team were shot down two weeks into his second tour.
That was then; Iraq is now. What have we learned, in between?Either about senseless intervention, or about honoring our dead by not squandering the living?
May 25, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Delapino was a hero, in more ways than one. I wish we were doing better honoring our veterans than we did after Viet Nam, but that's not the case. When will we ever learn?
May 25, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
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