Artillery Article Index : Current 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
 Latest
 News 		  Most
 Read 		  Most
 Commented		  Hot
 Topics

September 19, 2004

In the seven months after World War II ended in Germany, American troops suffered 52 combat deaths (according to the 1947 Statistical and Accounting Branch of the Office of the Adjutant General's Final Report.) The troops were dealing with a population (the American Sector) about the same size of that in modern day Iraq. There were also many more U.S. troops in Germany, than in Iraq today, although most of them were in the process of leaving during the period. Fewer than 100,000 military police and combat troops were destined for a long term occupation force. American troops, in seven months after the Iraqi army was defeated, suffered 304 combat dead. Unlike Germany, where the foe were some diehard nazis and well armed gangsters, Iraq is undergoing a civil war. Germany also had just undergone a five year war, and the loss of about eight percent of its population to combat and non-combat deaths. Iraq has experienced three weeks of combat and a few thousand deaths. The German police and civil servants were more efficient, and less corrupt, than those found in Iraq. That helped keep the death toll down as well.