This weekend honors those who served our country but whom we never could thank with a handshake, applause or a ticker-tape parade − because we never had the chance.
They are the people who fought and gave their lives for America and our allies. In most cases, they never knew the outcome of their ultimate sacrifice – whether it was on a beach in Normandy, a Middle Eastern desert, a jungle in Asia, or a field in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
It has been 155 years since soldiers from both sides of the Civil War joined in remembering their lost comrades in America's bloodiest war on what was once called Decoration Day. An act of Congress in 1971 created the Memorial Day holiday we now observe.
The number of dead in the Civil War ranges from Department of Defense estimates of 618,000 to newer estimates of 750,000. Combined with the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the Revolutionary War, the toll ranges from 1.265 million to 1.397 million.
Regardless of the Civil War estimate, the number of active-duty deaths per 100,000 between 1861 and 1865 is more than six times higher than in World War II. The five most deadly U.S. wars in deaths per 100,000:
- 1,965 per 100,000 residents: Civil War
- 307: World War II (1941-45)
- 126: World War I (1917-18)
- 113: American Revolution (1775-83)
- 78: Mexican War (1846-48)
Of course, these numbers fall well short of all those U.S. soldiers who have left battlefields wounded, physically and mentally, in the past 2½ centuries.
J. David Ake, AP
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