Statistics show its safer to fight in Iraq than live normaly at home...

Originally posted by Countermeasures
For the sake of the population, DRAFT!!!

Now thats the funniest thing ive heard all day, thanks CM!

Originally posted by skippytjc
Nygen, the rotation does need to be factored in. We cant assume these troops arent falling prey to thier own death rate when not in action back home during the time we are measuring.

So, we are assuming that people die at a rate of .20% in civillian life vs .16% during combat in Iraq. But not all 955,000 were fighting at the same time, so a portion were always at the home death rate of .20%

But you only want to consider people who participated in the iraq and afghan wars and died in combat, not merely people who participated in it and ended up dying for other reasons. Only combat deaths. That means you don't need to consider any rotation of troops, you simply look at how many went in, and how many died because of combat injuries. The only 'death count' we have here is combat deaths anyway. I doubt that there is a record of how many have rotated back to the states and died in the way civilians die.

Surely there is some distortion, some guys might by 'MIA', others might've died from complications long afterwards and not be considered combat deaths when they should, sure, but very few.

aceofbase
The Iraq war deaths may only count those who died in Iraq not in Germany of the US.

I find that difficult to beleive, on the face of it anyway. Are you relatively convinced ofthis?

The time scales are different

So you are saying one should consider the death rate as a sort of function of time in a particular zone then no?

I don't know about that, its certainly a different sort of thing, but the overall idea here is that, if you take a million soldiers, and a million civilians, and then send those soldiers to the iraq and afghanistan war, using whatever rotations, terms, whatever, you end up with a higher survival rate amoung the soldiers.

Also, most soldiers sent there stayed there for a long while.

can only guess this not having ever fought in a war, but Im sure most dont think about injury, they think about dying

Yes but if you are making that case that its 'safer' it should reasonably be factored in.

, fighting in iraq is not much more dangerous than living a regular life back home.

From what we have so far I'd say you're much better off having served in iraq than having stayed in the states as a civilian. If you were one in a million civilians, your chance of outright death was higher in that timeframe than if you were one in a million soldiers.

With respect to what you said above, I suppose one could say 'would ya rather be a severely injured but alive soldier, or a civilian who simply died?'. Technically the soldier is better off, but that of course is debatable.

If I was one of those deserting cowards hiding in Canada right now, Im sure I wouldnt be happy learning this statistic.

Hmmmm, I suspect you don't want to make this arguement. By staying at home they are risking their life. If they went to iraq they'd be safer. This rationale would support a cliam of being a concientious objector. Of course, not actually becoming a contientious objector would speak against that.

mean, we all assume everything has gone to hell over there from what we see and hear on the news. But the actual statistics show it isnt as bad as we think.

I don't think that arguement is valid with respect to the soldier v/ civilian death rate. What does speak against 'its gone to hell over there' (in terms of gi's being killed) is that the iraq war has the lowest combat fatality rate of any war. I mean, you can't seriously say iraq is like vietnam when the death rates are different by a factor of ten, or a hundred.

aceofbase
Surely that's higher than the civilian population.

I'd think so too, however I thought the death rate was higher too. 700 amputees, even if we add them to the 'dead' list, don't make enough of a difference tho.

I doubt staying in a warzone is beneficial to your health. Especially with all the depleted uranium dust flying about and the fact that if you're american you'd stick out like a sore thumb/target. I also have a hard time believing those numbers are accurate concerning the dead and wounded soldiers. With the massive lies that led up to the war I see no reason to think that the lies would stop once the war has gone on for a while. Plus the known fact that many soldiers are transferred out of Iraq before they die from their wounds which leaves them off the body count absolutely messes with those numbers.

Originally posted by Frith
I doubt staying in a warzone is beneficial to your health. Especially with all the depleted uranium dust flying about and the fact that if you're american you'd stick out like a sore thumb/target.

And yet, the analysis shows that soldiers who serverd in iraq have a lower mortality rate than people who did not.

With the massive lies that led up to the war I see no reason to think that the lies would stop once the war has gone on for a while.

Then nothing can be known either way.

Plus the known fact that many soldiers are transferred out of Iraq before they die from their wounds which leaves them off the body count absolutely messes with those numbers.

Demonstrate that this occurs. I'd be interested to see the evidence for it.

Originally posted by skippytjc
I bet that the death rate of US soldiers in Iraq vs the quantity served is LOWER than if those very same males in their age groups would suffer back at home living a “normal” life.

Anybody else think I am right on this?

No, but how much are you wagering on this matter of life or death? (hypothetically, and not outside any gambling-prohibition terms of this site, of course...)

Of the 900,000+ who have served, not all were in the battle zone inside Iraq. Most were on ships or other logistics bases in the area and were NOT being shot at. Only maybe 300,000 total can be counted as serving IN Iraq. Right now there about 150,000 there. Some have been there two or even three times.

There is a plethora of variables to consider when working out statistics such as these. One is that not everyone who is deployed sets foot in-country. Some fly over, some are at sea, some are in rearward positions, and some are fighting house to house. Serving in Iraq anywhere is dangerous enough and one of the most dangerous jobs, motor transport, is not even a combat MOS. In Vietnam, someone figured that the life-expectancy of a machine-gunner in a fire-fight in Vietnam was roughly 30 seconds. It's all relative.

To MBF and Grady:

You are totally right. But the bottom line is the rate of death in combat in Iraq is lower than the normal mortality rate of civilians living normal lives. Of course there are a galizion factors and conditions that would sku the numbers. And of course I am still not running to the recruiter to enlist.

But the plain hard fact is, if these 955,000 soldiers were at home right now, they would be dying at a faster rate than soldiers in combat are in Iraq. Simple fact.

[edit on 3-2-2005 by skippytjc]

I wanted to revive this post from a few months back.

We basically proved that fighting in Iraq is statistically safer (regarding mortality) than living a normal life at home.

Anybody have an updated list of total US military served in Iraq and Afghanistan so we can refresh the numbers? To see if the rate is going up or down?

Also: Should we include "instances" or soldiers serving multiple tours? I.e should a souldier on thier 3rd tour be treated as 3?

Thanks



[edit on 6-7-2005 by skippytjc]

for a fair statistical analisis one would need to find the mean number of people that were serving in iraq at any one time within the time used to gather the data. this would help limmit the statistical skewing that occurs as soldures rotate in and out of the war zone. in other words you need to take the average of men there at any given time not use data on all the men who have served. by useing all who have served even if some may have only been there say six months, 1 year, six weeks ect. it throws the numbers off on the low end for soldures dieing/soldures serveing.

just pulling numbers from my head to show this. say 1,000,000 men have served over all, 100,000 at any given time. (i am useing simple numbers here for ease) now say over all 1000 have died dureing the conflict.
that can be taken as 1,000/1,000,000 or .1% now that is an overall rate. or it can be taken as 1,000/100,000 or 1% which is a fairer acessment of the numbers? i would think 1% is the more realistic figure. that takes it as if only the number serveing at any given time.not being skewed by the fact that soldures come and go at any given time some are injured and evacuated to be replaced by someone whole or guys being rotated back and forth. the fact that they are not there the compleate time where as they are there the whole time in the home front.

also are these soldures still being counted in the number of men still at home? they would have to be as they were most likely there at least some of that time.

another valid poit is WHERE people are possitioned. a person serveing as a non flight crew on a carrior for example has an extreemly low chance of being killed due to the fact that there is very little the enimy can do to reach them (they don't have a navey or airforce remember). so a fairer acessment would only take into account those that stand a reasonable chance of actualy being put into harms way, yet another skewing of data.

i also remember hearing of the "time of typoical survival" studdies that were done at one point that took actual jobs into account. some jobs had their mean time as mere minutes or even seconds of survival whereas some had virtualy unlimmited lifespans due to lack of enimy contact.

How's the old saying go...Statisitcs never lie but only liars use statisitics.

Originally posted by Delta 38
How's the old saying go...Statisitcs never lie but only liars use statisitics.

much too true. statistics can be skewed farely easily to show what the analist wants it to. just as i have shown above the way that they use the data that they have can change things dramaticaly.

My overall point is to show that in the big picture, from a mortality perspective, your chances of dying as a soldier in Iraq arent much different than that same soldier as a civilian going to the mall or the super market.

Now, as an individual or on a case by case basis, its certainly more dangerous to be in any part of a war zone than sit on your couch. But as far as mortality rate is concerned, its not much different at all with this war.

Hey, imagine going to the super market in a war zone!! Double toruble

Originally posted by skippytjc
To MBF and Grady:

You are totally right. But the bottom line is the rate of death in combat in Iraq is lower than the normal mortality rate of civilians living normal lives. Of course there are a galizion factors and conditions that would sku the numbers. And of course I am still not running to the recruiter to enlist.

But the plain hard fact is, if these 955,000 soldiers were at home right now, they would be dying at a faster rate than soldiers in combat are in Iraq. Simple fact.

[edit on 3-2-2005 by skippytjc]

To count the deaths while in Iraq you'd calculate /120,000 , not 955,000. That'd be 1700/120000 which is a lot higher. That's even with the skewed death count. The real number is arround 9,000 probably. 9000/120000

Oh, and .2 is higher than .17. So, even if you divide the real figure by about 6 or 7, it's still higher. Which means the real count (i'm too lazy to do the math on a calculator atm) with 1700 troops is about 6 times higher.

[edit on 7/6/05 by RedDragon]

Men serving in the military are probably much more healthy than the average man sitting at home IMHO.

But it's still an interesting statistic.

Originally posted by RedDragon

Originally posted by skippytjc
To MBF and Grady:

You are totally right. But the bottom line is the rate of death in combat in Iraq is lower than the normal mortality rate of civilians living normal lives. Of course there are a galizion factors and conditions that would sku the numbers. And of course I am still not running to the recruiter to enlist.

But the plain hard fact is, if these 955,000 soldiers were at home right now, they would be dying at a faster rate than soldiers in combat are in Iraq. Simple fact.

[edit on 3-2-2005 by skippytjc]

To count the deaths while in Iraq you'd calculate /120,000 , not 955,000. That'd be 1700/120000 which is a lot higher. That's even with the skewed death count. The real number is arround 9,000 probably. 9000/120000

Oh, and .2 is higher than .17. So, even if you divide the real figure by about 6 or 7, it's still higher. Which means the real count (i'm too lazy to do the math on a calculator atm) with 1700 troops is about 6 times higher.

[edit on 7/6/05 by RedDragon]

You are completly wrong Red. You cannot use the number that are there at one time, you must use the number that have served as a whole, as the death count includes all that have served, not just whos there right now. read the entire thread please to understand.

View an interactive map that details service members that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. This seems to tie in to the subject so I thought I'd mention it.

Interactive map

You need to factor in a few additional things here. The 150,000 number that is being thrown around here is the total number of people who are what the military calls "in theater". The definition of "theater" can include areas far from the combat zone. In the first Gulf War the crew of a C-5 cargo plane that crashed were counted as combat deaths, problem is that the C-5 crashed in Germany. The people who are "in theater" can include the sailors on ships both in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea can be considered as can the headquarters staff in Quatar and Florida. This is a far cry from the number of people who are actually in combat. I can make a fair assumption that out of these 150,000 only about 40,000 are actually in combat units. The rest of the 150,000 are in the supply, medical, maintainance and other support units. The rule of thumb is that for every combat soldier there are 3.5 people supporting them. I acknowledge that some of the casualties have come from the support units, but as a general rule the people in these units are safer than the soldiers who are standing guard and going on patrols. Numbers like this are funny things, depending on the definition and application you can prove both sides of an arguement.

I do know that when I deployed on aircraft carriers in the 80's we were safer on the ship than we were ashore. Figure that the majority of people on board the ship were in good physical shape, medical help was always available with in minutes and everyone had both the training and equipment to do their job. I am not saying that no one ever died, but on a six month deployment with 5200 people we would lose between 6 and 10 people.

You are completly wrong Red. You cannot use the number that are there at one time, you must use the number that have served as a whole, as the death count includes all that have served, not just whos there right now. read the entire thread please to understand.

If you include the entire number of people who haved served in Iraq then you must include in the statistics the deaths which occured while not in Iraq. . . you have to include all deaths within the group.

You are not doing this you are only including deaths while in Iraq so you have proved nothing, and your 'statistics' are completely spurious.

Originally posted by Roy Robinson Stewart

You are completly wrong Red. You cannot use the number that are there at one time, you must use the number that have served as a whole, as the death count includes all that have served, not just whos there right now. read the entire thread please to understand.

If you include the entire number of people who haved served in Iraq then you must include in the statistics the deaths which occured while not in Iraq. . . you have to include all deaths within the group.

You are not doing this you are only including deaths while in Iraq so you have proved nothing, and your 'statistics' are completely spurious.

And if you have read the entire thread, you would have read where I have stated the same thing, months ago. Its been accounted for.

The troops death rate while NOT in Iraq could only be assumed to be the same as non troops, which is only slightly HIGHER. It would only slightly increase the death rate of the troops, hardly enough to even calculate. But, apparently you are a mathematical whiz so you MUST know this...

Please, do yourself a favor and become informed before posting sarcasm, you only make your self look like an idiot. A math or statistics class or two may help as well...



[edit on 27-8-2005 by skippytjc]

[edit on 27-8-2005 by skippytjc]