American War Deaths
Data Brief
The current data brief summarizes the sex and racial/ethnic composition of American military personnel who have died in war. The first graph shows the number of American males who have died in war, starting from the Revolutionary War and ending with Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The data were extracted from a United States (U.S.) government report: American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics (RL32492). The report was published on July 29, 2020. Thus, current data brief does not account for any war deaths (or recalculations of war deaths) after that date. The number of deaths from the Civil War are uncertain due incomplete records. The source reports 364,511 deaths of Union soldiers and then estimates Confederate soldier deaths as 133,821 (74,524 battle and 59,297 other) plus 26,000 to 31,000 Confederate soldier deaths in Union prisons. For this data brief, I calculated Confederate deaths as 133,821 + 26,000 = 159,821. The second graph shows the proportions of war deaths by race/ethnicity. These data were available from the source only for the Korean War, Vietnam Conflict, Persian Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
American Male War Deaths
Deaths in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II align with the left y-axis scale. Deaths in all other wars align with the right y-axis scale.
Across all wars, the total number of male deaths is estimated at 1,170,432.
The deadliest war was the Civil War (1861-1865), with approximately 524,332 male deaths.
The second deadliest war was World War II (1941-1946), with approximately 405,399 male deaths.
The third deadliest war was World War I (1917-1918), with approximately 116,516 male deaths.
Female war deaths were two in the Korean War, eight in the Vietnam Conflict, 15 in the Persian Gulf War, 51 in Operation Enduring Freedom, and 110 in Operation Iraqi Freedom. A second source reported 432 female deaths in World II, which takes the total number of American female war deaths to 618.
Thus, males comprise 99.9% of the American military personnel who have been killed in the history of U.S. warfare.
American War Deaths by Race/Ethnicity
Data on the race/ethnicity of Americans killed in war were available for the Korean War, Vietnam Conflict, Persian Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Across all five wars, white individuals comprised 83.4% of the war deaths, black individuals comprised 10.8% of the war deaths, and individuals of other races/ethnicities comprised 5.8% of the war deaths.
Source
Congressional Research Service. American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics (RL32492). Updated July 29, 2020.
Bonus Commentary
Nearly 1.2 million American military personnel have been killed across the 12 wars in U.S. history. Of those 1.2 million, 99.9% have been men, and approximately 83% since 1950 have been white men and women. These data are a cause for reflection.
First, consider the total loss of life. The approximate 1.2 million dead soldiers equals today’s populations for the following U.S. cities (including surrounding metropolitan areas): Birmingham, Alabama; Rochester, New York; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Honolulu, Hawaii.
Second, data on war deaths have implications for contemporary discussions on sex/gender. Over the past couple of decades, academia has been relentless in its criticisms of men and masculinity. Humanities departments have delivered numerous ideological cheap shots at men (e.g., “male privilege”) without simultaneously recognizing male contributions and male disadvantages or struggles (e.g., war deaths, suicides, homelessness). This asymmetrical narrative about men and masculinity has fuelled a war of its own: the modern gender war, where men and women are diverging ideologically and practically. One of the organizations driving the gender war is the United Nations (UN), who publishes a constant stream of sex/gender propaganda, including the idea that women are the sex most affected by war (see section 5.2.2 of my previous analysis).
Academia has also regularly denigrated men’s contributions and sacrifices, including in war. For example, in 2023, professor of sociology Lauren Dundes published a paper titled “Symbolism of the US battlefield cross: how boots, rifles, and helmets reinforce masculinity.” Dundes argued that the battlefield cross memorial—comprised of a dead soldier’s boots, rifle, helmet, and dog tags—is “phallic symbolism” that “valorizes machismo” and makes women feel uncomfortable and impedes “gender parity” in the military. Putting aside the fact that the battlefield cross memorial has never been intended to represent a penis or male power, I suspect that if a group of female soldiers had constructed a vagina-looking memorial for a dead female solider, this would have been widely celebrated as a brave and virtuous act of female empowerment.
Third, data on war deaths have implications for contemporary discussions about race/ethnicity. For example, advocates of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) often frame arguments around group “representations.” If a particular racial group has a health outcomes that is, on average, worse compared to another racial group, DEI advocates label it a “health disparity” or “health inequity” that is caused by an injustice. Yet, DEI advocates do not acknowledge outcomes that run counter to their narratives, such as white individuals being “overrepresented” in military deaths. In 2010, white individuals comprised 72.4% of the U.S. population, while comprising 82-85% of war deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Making matters worse is that this disproportionate sacrifice made by white Americans has occurred while DEI advocates have pushed racist slurs like “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “white ignorance,” “white fragility,” “white innocence,” and “white complicity.” Importantly, these are not concepts that stay locked in professors’ offices. They percolate out into broader society, including the military. For example, influenced by DEI ideology during the Biden presidency, the Defense Department hired the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) to investigate “white supremacism” and other political extremisms ideologies among U.S. military personnel. The IDA conducted its investigation between June 2021 and June 2022. The published their report quietly in December of 2023. Little media attention surrounded the report because the IDA did not find overwhelming evidence of “white supremacism” or other “political extremisms” in the U.S. military:
“IDA’s review found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole, although there is some indication that the rate of participation by former service members is slightly higher and may be growing. IDA also found no evidence of violent extremist behavior by DOD civilians. The participation in violent extremist activities of even a small number of individuals with military connections and military training, however, could present a risk to the military and to the country as a whole.”
Importantly, the disrespect of white military personnel has not been limited to the U.S. In 2022, the Canadian military published a critical theory-informed-report that shamefully tried to claim that the Canadian military is run amok with “systemic racism and discrimination.” The report was later refuted in an article published in the National Post.
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Loved this article. I often think of the sacrifices of my ancestors who fought in all the was covered in your article. All men of course. I had ancestors fight for the south in the civil war even though none of them were slave owners.
Females often dismiss the fact that only US men are required to sign up for the draft. They fail to recognize that if we men do not do so, we cannot vote in federal elections. I would not have been hired by the USPS if I had not.
In front of congress, one of the silly feminists testified that if the 19th amendment was ratified, women would not need to be drafted because wars would be ended by women.
We see that the world has gotten worse since that amended passed. The US debt has ballooned because the politicians pander to the females and use money taken from men to buy the female votes.
I fear for my grandsons, who will have to clean up the messes made by these females and their male conspirators.
Fortunately my sons married excellent women, who love my sons and are great mothers to my grandsons.
Thanks for posting this! People tend to forget and do not realize the sacrifice made by others. Whether one agrees with going to war or not, these men died... and that is worthy of mention early and often.