...We were told this early on in the war, but we've all become used to looking at the official counts of troops killed in combat rather than the total number of troop deaths resulting from service in the current action. The official number is for people who actually die on the field. If they manage to get them to a helicopter before they die, they don't get included in those counts. Meanwhile, the number of Gulf war deaths since 1991 is higher than it was for the 20 years of the Vietnam war, it turns out: around 74,000.
Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths: 73,846
– Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847
– Deaths amongst Non-Deployed: 55,999
Total “Undiagnosed Illness” (UDX) claims: 14,874
Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906
- Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911
- Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed: 1,212,995
Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims 36%
Source [a .pdf file]
More Gulf War veterans have died than Viet Nam veterans. And one wonders exactly what the definition of "deployed" vs. "non-deployed" but actually, you know, "there" is.
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