Iraq War Dead for June 2005
US military deaths in Iraq mostly held steady in June, with 78 deaths (compared to the 80 deaths that ended up being counted in May).
Again, I’m getting these figures from the advanced search tool at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund site, and from Lunaville’s page on Iraq coalition casualties. The figures are for the number of US dead per month, without regard to whether the deaths were combat-related.
The first graph shows the first 28 months of each war. (Click on any image for a larger version.)
Next, the same chart, with the Vietnam numbers extended out to cover the first four years of the war:
Finally, the chart that gives the US death toll for the entire Vietnam war:
Disclaimer: I’m aware that we have more troops in-theater in Iraq than we had during the corresponding parts of the Vietnam War graph. Vietnam didn’t get numbers of US troops comparable to the number currently in Iraq until shortly after Johnson won the 1964 election, some three-and-a-half years after the starting point of the Vietnam graphs above.
These graphs are not intended to show the relative lethality of the two conflicts on a per-soldier basis. I was just curious how the “death profile” of the two wars compared, and these graphs let me see that. You are free to draw your own conclusions.
July 8th, 2005 at 4:37 pm
It is hard to remember the slow and steady build-up of the Vietnam War. That war didn’t gain any real public traction until it got onto TV every night and that wasn’t until 1965-66.
Iraq is certainly different, but the longer our occuption drags on, the more likely that the political situation in Iraq will come to resemble Vietnam and the more likely Iraq will end up in a civil war, just like Vietnam
July 9th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Linked this post and site over at Words Have Power.
http://whpsocal.blogspot.com/
Keep turning over rocks.
July 11th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
I would go far as to say that Iraq is in the begining stages of a civil war. When one faction of society attacks another based on different beliefs, be it polical or religous, that is the making of a civil war.
“We’ll be greeted as liberators.”