Recent news of the recovery, identification and burial of an American airman missing in action over Laos in 1972 reminds us of the many men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in U.S. wars.
Last month, "in response to numerous requests for war casualty statistics and lists of war dead," the Congressional Research Service published a report which compiles hard-to-find statistics about principal wars and combat actions from the Revolutionary War to the Iraq-Afghanistan conflict. The data is broken out by branch of service, combat vs other types of deaths, reserve vs regular military, rank, gender, missing/presumed dead and other factors. In all a sobering, but essential, historical document.
