Presenting the Mortality Mathematics of Memorial Day.<\/p>\n
In the American Revolution, approximately 50,000 patriots were killed or wounded. That\u2019s a big number.\u00a0 But when you consider the population of the colonies at that time was approximately 4 million, it represents only 1.2% of the total population.\u00a0 In World War 2, America sacrificed an astounding 1 million soldiers. \u00a0Which was less than 1% of the total population of 150 million.\u00a0 Our most grievous conflict by far was the Civil War.\u00a0 On the northern side, 3.2% of the total population was killed or wounded, while on the southern side, the number was probably near 10%.<\/p>\n
Now, these numbers are based on total population (including females as well as males of non-fighting-age) so the percentage of deaths among fighting-age men is probably about 4 times higher. \u00a0For example, some historians believe that, during the Civil War, 1 out of every 3 southern men of fighting age were killed or wounded. \u00a0And these numbers also account only for military casualties, and don\u2019t include the loss and suffering of citizens.<\/p>\n
But consider this:\u00a0 approximately 3 million Americans have been killed or wounded in military actions in our history. \u00a0Based on our current population of 300 million people, the total number of Americans who\u2019ve ever lived is probably on the order of 1 billion. \u00a0Which means that for every 1000 Americans who\u2019ve ever lived, only 3 have given the last full measure of devotion.<\/p>\n
So this weekend, fire up the grill.\u00a0 Crack open a beer. \u00a0But also take a moment. \u00a0And give thanks for the sacrifices of the one-third-percent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Presenting the Mortality Mathematics of Memorial Day. In the American Revolution, approximately 50,000 patriots were killed or wounded. That\u2019s a big number.\u00a0 But when you consider the population of the colonies at that time was approximately 4 million, it represents only 1.2% of the total population.\u00a0 In World War 2,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[806,835,935,1311],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","tag-memorial-day","tag-mortality","tag-percentage","tag-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}