I’m sure you’re bombarded with posts about why exactly we have a long weekend for Memorial Day every year but bear with me, this won’t take long.
I wanted to quickly go over some of the major conflicts the U.S. has been engaged in, why they were fought, and how many lost their lives for the freedoms and privileges we take for granted in this country.
The American Revolution
Ah yes, the one that started it all. Most of us know generally what this was about. The American Colonies felt that King George was becoming increasingly tyrannical, enforcing new laws and taxes on the colonists without their consent. Eventually this led to a group of scrappy frontiersmen and colonists defeating the largest empire ever.
This one is particularly interesting to me because, not only is it America’s origin story, but also because of the underdog nature of it. I have no doubt that at least some of the weapons and supplies had to come from the colonists’ personal possessions. Certainly in the militia if not also in the regular army. It also speaks to the power of a home field advantage.
Wikipedia (yes I’m using Wikipedia bite me) states that 8,000 Americans died in combat with another 17,000 lost by other means. “Other” in their categorization as all non-combat deaths like disease, bombings, suicide, etc. We also suffered 25,000 wounded.
I recently found out that I have an ancestor that fought in the American Revolution and again in the War of 1812. Thank you modern technology. Maybe you have some ancestors like that; it might be high time you look into it!
The Civil War
This war is the second bloodiest behind World War II for the U.S. and remains one of the most significant events in U.S. history.
Again the cause of this war is fairly well known and is still sometimes used as a political weapon.
In this war the U.S. suffered 140,414 combat deaths, 224,097 “other” deaths, and 281,881 wounded. That makes it a grand total of 646,392 casualties for the U.S. Army.
Of course I make no defense of slavery (there is no good one I can think of) but the Confederates were at one time Americans and were again after the war. So in an attempt to love our enemy and to add to the scale of this war, the Confederates suffered 483,026 casualties including all combat deaths, “other” deaths, and wounded.
That brings the grand total to over 1,100,000; higher than the recorded number of WWII casualties. Making this not the second bloodiest, but the number one bloodiest war we’ve ever fought.
World War I
World War I is a war that has somewhat faded from memory despite being one of two world wars.
This somewhat makes sense because it lacks the crystal clear reasons that many of our other major wars had.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a member of the Austria-Hungary royal family and heir to the imperial throne, kicked off this war. What resulted was, to put it extremely generally, was a bunch of countries piling on and fighting together. The United States was one of these that joined the Allies (France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan) although we joined pretty late in the game in 1917.
We suffered 53,402 combat deaths, 63,114 “other” deaths, and 204,002 wounded. Which is exceptionally low compared to many of our allies in the conflict. France for example suffered over 1 million. Our comparatively low numbers is likely due to our limited involvement with the war.
Nonetheless, those American deaths shouldn’t be taken lightly.
World War II
It is strange to think that we were allied with Italy and Japan just two decades earlier in WWI and that we were allied with Russia for both world wars and shortly after got into a cold war that still affects our opinions and relations with Russia 30 years after the fall of the USSR.
In fact, some believe the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was meant both to end the war with Japan and to act as a deterrent to the growing power of the communist Soviet Union.
In this war we suffered 291,557 combat deaths, 113,842 “other” deaths, and 670,846 wounded. Putting the total at 1,076,245 American casualties.
Vietnam War
I decided to include this war because although it might not be quite as significant as the other wars on this list, it certainly is among the more controversial and had a big effect on our culture.
In previous wars, soldiers often returned as heroes greeted by loved ones, with the Vietnam war, they were often considered villains and greeted by protestors.
This was also the last war that the draft was implemented in. So the Vietnam war was perhaps the end of the draft and the end of seeing soldiers as good.
The total casualties for this war numbered at 211,454.
Now certainly many of us still consider soldiers to be heroes so perhaps saying the Vietnam war marked the end of soldiers being considered good is an exaggeration. At the very least it raised those sentiments to a more public level.
Indeed perhaps we should not just throw a party or be thoughtless on our extra day off work but take a short moment to be somber and remember the millions of soldiers who laid down their lives for us to live in this country. Perhaps also take a moment to remember those scars we cannot see and from which veterans die of even after they’ve returned home.
We must remember the sacrifices made by better men than us to build and defend this country.
Thank you for reading.
God Bless America.