Post by Moses on Oct 24, 2005 7:12:08 GMT -5
U.S. casualties by the numbers
October 24, 2005
Who are these Americans who've made the ultimate sacrifice? A typical Pentagon casualty report reads like this:
"Spec. Lucas A. Frantz, 22, of Tonganoxie, Kan., died in Mosul, Iraq, on Oct. 18, when he was hit by enemy fire while performing a combat mission. Frantz was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Ft. Wainwright, Alaska."
According to statistics drawn from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that compiles data on U.S. and allied casualties from Pentagon news releases and news reports:
Branch: Nearly 49% were Army soldiers; nearly 25% were Marines; more than 15% were members of the Army National Guard.
Gender: More than 97% were male, though 46 women, or 2.33%, have been killed.
Race: More than 73% were white; 11% were Latino; 10.7% were black.
Region: More than half came from 10 states: California (10.6%), Texas (8.9%), Pennsylvania (5.2%), New York (4.7%), Ohio (4.7%), Florida (4.2%), Illinois (4%), Georgia (3%), Michigan (3%) and Virginia (2.7%).
Rank: At least 80% held the rank of staff sergeant or below. The biggest percentage of those, 28%, were either specialists or corporals. Among officers, captains have been killed more than anyone else. At least 65 have died.
Age: Because of the presence of National Guard troops in Iraq, the dead tended to be older. Only 18% were ages 18 to 20. Nearly 60% were ages 21 to 30, with 17.3% ages 31 to 40. Nearly 5% were ages 41 to 50, and at least six were older than 50.
•The oldest soldier killed in combat was a 54-year-old Tennessee National Guardsman, shot by a sniper in the town of Mahmudiyah on July 9, 2003.
How killed:
•Roadside bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, account for nearly 28% of the deaths, more than any other cause. IEDs killed 40 soldiers in August, the most for any month; 35 have been killed by IEDs so far in October.
•Gunfights account for 24%.
Where: Nearly 23% of all U.S. deaths have occurred in Anbar province, the heart of the so-called Sunni Muslim triangle, west of Baghdad.
By Knight Ridder Newspapers
Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc.