changing scales (thank G*d)

[winterbadger]

from a series in the Post on the 101st Division's service in Iraq:

After several months of relative peace, Mosul and the surrounding region were wracked with insurgent attacks, which ebbed in mid-winter, then surged again with suicide bombings in early February that killed numerous Iraqi policemen and more than 50 Kurds. The worst night occurred on Nov. 15, when 17 troops from the 101st died after two Black Hawk helicopters collided over Mosul, due at least in part to ground fire.
"Nothing prepares a commander for the loss of 17 soldiers in one night," [101st Division commander] Petraeus wrote me in an e-mail shortly afterward. The division's casualties in Iraq totaled 69 dead -- including non-battle fatalities -- and 489 wounded. A vast majority of the deaths and injuries occurred after the move into northern Iraq. "I think I've mentioned to you before that division command in combat is a roller-coaster experience, with real highs and real lows," Petraeus also wrote me from Mosul in late November. In January he added, "It's been a long, tough year, and I am older in more ways than just age."

While I sorrow with the comrades, family, and friends of those who were killed or wounded, I can't help but give thanks that a division commander in wartime would face casualties of 69 KIA and 500 wounded. IN Operation Market-Garden, the British 1st Airborne Division took over 5,000 casualties between 17 September and 25 September 1944, 1,200 of them killed in action.

Comments

[flyingwolf.livejournal.com]

of course a lot of the 500 wounded have serious wounds that would have killed them in 1944, but still... I know what you mean. I'm amazed by the way we react now to the actual small number of US soldiers that have been killed in Iraq. Small to what wars have been in the past and way smaller than the Iraqi deaths.

[winterbadger]

And even the Iraqi deaths (though too numerous) have been lower than in comparable situations in past wars. Mistakes still get made and tragedies happen, but (at least as far as I know) there aren't incidents with the US armed forces like there were in WWII, where the Luftwaffe deliberately strafed civilian refugee convoys on secondary roads to drive them onto the main roads that the French Army was trying to use for retreat. We're a little too eager to hit civilian infrastructure targets (especially power generating facilities) that enemy armed forces can use, but...

[flyingwolf.livejournal.com]

Well, would be even harder to take the moral high ground if we did stuff like that. And there's more reporting now than there was.