As of Sunday, April 24, 2005, at least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,191 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.(Emphasis mine)
The AP count is three higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Friday.
The British military has reported 86 deaths; Italy, 21; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Spain, 11; Bulgaria, eight; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, El Salvador, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.
Meanwhile, in 2003 in the U.S. there were 42,263 traffic deaths; 42,800 in 2004. In Michigan alone in , there were 1,158 traffic deaths (down 10% from the previous year)
The number of U.S. Motorcycle deaths in 2003 were 3,661; in 2004: 3,927.
If we switch to Alcohol-related deaths, there were 17,013 in 2003 and 16,654 in 2004 in the U.S.
The Insurgents have in less than a year killed nearly as many native Iraqis in the new Iraqi security forces as they have killed Americans (a little over 1000).
Although difficult to estimate (for reasons discussed here) the total number of Iraqi civilians killed by "insurgents" is roughly estimated at 6000, while 16,000 are estimated wounded over the last two years.
Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death. --Major Robert S. Johnson, USAAF
If man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.--John Donne
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