While surfing around this morning I stumbled upon some very interesting numbers. A list of deaths in the US Military from every year for 1980 to 2006. I also compiled stats on 2007 to compare. The results are somewhat surprising.

The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2007:

1980 ……… 2,392 (Carter Year)
1981 ……… 2,380 (Reagan Year)
1984 ………. 1,999 (Reagan Year)
1988 ………. 1,819 (Reagan Year)
1989 ……… 1,636 (George HW Year)
1990 ……… 1,508 (George HW Year)
1991 ………. 1,787 (George HW Year)
1992 ………. 1,293 (George HW Year)
1993 ……… 1,213 (Clinton Year)
1994 ………. 1,075 (Clinton Year)
1995 ………. 2,465 (Clinton Year)
1996 ………. 2,318 (Clinton Year)
1997 …………. 817 (Clinton Year)
1998 ………. 2,252 (Clinton Year)
1999 ………. 1,984 (Clinton Year)
2000 ………. 1,983 (Clinton Year)
2001 ………… 890 (George W Year)
2002 ………. 1,007 (George W Year)
2003 ………. 1,410 (George W Year)
2004 ………. 1,887 (George W Year)
2005 …………. 919 (George W Year)
2006………….. 920 (George W Year)
2007………….. 901 (George W Year)

You can check some of these numbers here.

The deaths for the entire war in the Middle East comes to 7,934 as of December 2007. That is about 1/2 of the 14,000 deaths which occurred during the Clinton Presidency.

While every death is tragic, it actually looks like it is considerably safer to be in the military now that when Clinton was president. Further, the trend is improving considerably. I wonder why the media is not showing us this comparison?

Looks like I am not the first to find this.