By Patricia L Johnson and Richard E Walrath
The following is a must read for all Americans that value the lives of our men and women in uniform. The data was copied from CRS Report Number RL32170, Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2009, which consists of 33 single-spaced pages of US military involvement in foreign countries. How many more pages would be added if the material was updated to the current year?
The 17th anniversary of 9/11 is here and seventeen years later we are still making a major ordeal out of the attack on our country where less than 3,000 individuals were killed by terrorists. When are we going to start reading the names of the hundreds of thousands of US Servicemembers that have given their lives protecting this country and our freedoms?
Enough is enough. 9/11 has been kept front and center for over a decade and that’s a good thing if you’re looking to go to war with every country in the world and you want the American public behind you, but 10-years should have been a reasonable length of time for us to honor the victims of 9/11. Everyone that is old enough to remember, remembers 9/11 and we aren’t going to forget the scenes that flashed before us on that dreadful day, but the men and women in our military are going to battle every day and the very least we can do is mention their names when their life is lost, or when they are returned with broken bodies or broken minds due to the horrors of war they have endured.
America’s Wars Fact Sheet published May 2017 by the Department of Veterans Affairs (source data for battle deaths, wounded, number of Servicemembers, etc.), shows the following totals for the period of (1775 – 1991). These totals include wars both inside the U.S. and foreign countries, such as the American Revolution from 1775 – 1783 and Indian Wars (approx..1817-1898).
2,977 victims were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack and if you add in the 19 terrorists killed, that brings the total to 2,996 dead. From 2001 on, twice that many military personnel have been killed in our never-ending War on Terror. It’s interesting to note the revised total of deaths due to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is 2,975, or only two fewer deaths than occurred on 9/11. Are we going to declare war on FEMA?
There were 6,000 individuals that suffered injuries in the 9/11 attacks on our soil. From 2001 on there have been a total of 52,728 members of our military wounded, or seven and a half times the number injured on 9/11.
Details may be viewed on the following Department of Defense chart.
The 52,728 wounded are wounded that required hospitalization. How many were wounded that didn’t require hospitalization for their wounds? How many are going to die and/or be wounded in retaliation and when will the killing and maiming stop?
How do you determine the cost of war? In lives that cannot be replaced? The cost of treating the injured, sick and wounded?
The answer you will receive is we have an all-volunteer military. Why? Why would a person enter the military when there is a chance they might be killed or wounded? In many instances it’s because of the patriotism they feel for the country, but in all too many cases the reason our young men and women join the military is for an education. An education they cannot afford on their own.
The wealthy can afford the education required to make it in this country, but the poor cannot. The draft used to be a big problem for the rich as they had to get deferments to avoid wars or serve in a war zone. Now with an all-volunteer military, the same people are deployed repeatedly.
The Veterans Administration completed a study in 2014 to determine the number of living Americans that had served in the military. Using figures from their own records, the Department of Defense, the US Census Bureau, the IRS and the Social Security Administration, they came up with a total of approximately 7% living Americans split as follows: 3.1% Army, 1.7% Navy, 1.4% Air Force, .8% Marines, and .5% Non-Defense or reserves.
The only way you can understand why and how our country gets into wars is to read the full report published by the CRS. The following pages apply to the wars and deployments most Americans are familiar with, what about the deployments you knew nothing about?
These individuals in our military need your help. They need your help in leveling the playing field and the only way you will be able to provide that assistance to them, is to vote for individuals in the upcoming election that care what happens to them, not only when they’re fighting for their lives, but when they return home and require assistance with their wounds, both on the outside and those hidden deep inside their heads and hearts.
The declared and undeclared wars listed below are those most familiar to Americans.
© 2018 Johnson and Walrath
Richard E Walrath is a former budget analyst for Ohio State University and currently resides in Ohio with his family. Patricia L Johnson is a former special assignment writer/photographer residing in the Midwest.
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