1 in 4 Amercain casualties in Iraq were non-hostile - Today's NYT

[henslee]

page A22. Hard copy. No link. Heading...Conflict in Iraq: Casualties. Data part of charts accompanying "Roster of the Dead"
by Matthew Ericson & Tom Torok

That is an astonishing fact.

[bowens43]

1. If it kills you it's hostile........

[ClintonTyree]

2. The rest...................

probably died from food poisoning after eating the slop Halliburton fed them. How can they be non-hostile? If you're in harms way becuase of some idiot's vendetta and greed for oil. and you get killed, I'd say that's a hostile casualty. If Bush had decided to send our soldiers to Coney Island and one of them got killed, I'd consider that non-hostile. THEY'RE IN FREAKING IRAQ!!

[henslee]

3. Come on, both of you... hostile as in enemy inflicted (whew)

[lebkuchen]

4. 1 in 4 soldiers in Afghanistan are killed by negligent discharge

shooting themselves and each other because their gun went off when they didn't intend it to. That stat doesn't include the "friendly fires."

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=22704&archive=true