War casualties
In my Vietnam class today, my teacher warned us to pay attention to what people mean by "casualties" when discussing this war. The civilian notion of casualties is usually meant as actual deaths of soldiers, killed in action. But the military sense of casualties is all armed forces not capable of combat, which includes those killed, wounded, missing, captured, or even those who catch the flu. So when an ex-General says expect 3000 casualties for coalition forces, he's probably using the latter definition.
Okay, I'm no expert on military affairs, but let's assume this General knows what he's talking about and we have 3000 casualties. Typically most casualties are wounded or missing or captured. I think a standard unit would be a 2:1 ratio of non-killed casualties to kill-casualties. So we're talking 1000 killed in action.
Even this is shaky. What really is the difference between a soldier who's killed in a battle as compared to one who gets his leg blown off by a tank shell, and dies in the hospital two months later? And not to mention who knows how many soldiers will die from radiation poisoning from the Depleted Uranium we're using as ammunition.
Hawks keep saying "we must support our troops". Well, you know what, I support our troops, each one individually. I don't support them only in army form. I don't want them to be having to fight this immoral war in the first place. And their deaths are on the heads of the people who rushed to go to war, not the people who didn't want a war in the first place.
In my Vietnam class today, my teacher warned us to pay attention to what people mean by "casualties" when discussing this war. The civilian notion of casualties is usually meant as actual deaths of soldiers, killed in action. But the military sense of casualties is all armed forces not capable of combat, which includes those killed, wounded, missing, captured, or even those who catch the flu. So when an ex-General says expect 3000 casualties for coalition forces, he's probably using the latter definition.
Okay, I'm no expert on military affairs, but let's assume this General knows what he's talking about and we have 3000 casualties. Typically most casualties are wounded or missing or captured. I think a standard unit would be a 2:1 ratio of non-killed casualties to kill-casualties. So we're talking 1000 killed in action.
Even this is shaky. What really is the difference between a soldier who's killed in a battle as compared to one who gets his leg blown off by a tank shell, and dies in the hospital two months later? And not to mention who knows how many soldiers will die from radiation poisoning from the Depleted Uranium we're using as ammunition.
Hawks keep saying "we must support our troops". Well, you know what, I support our troops, each one individually. I don't support them only in army form. I don't want them to be having to fight this immoral war in the first place. And their deaths are on the heads of the people who rushed to go to war, not the people who didn't want a war in the first place.
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