Quote:
Originally Posted by patteeu
I thought this was interesting in terms of putting cost in perspective:
Total US fatalities in the nearly 8 years of war in and around Afghanistan: 834
Total US fatalities on the morning of June 6, 1944 (D-Day): 2,499 And given that our total population has increased from 138 million to 305 million during that time period, there were 7 times more US fatalities per capita on that bloody morning than during the entire Afghanistan war. That's the equivalent of saying it would take over half a century of warfare in Afghanistan to lose the same fraction of our population as we lost in a single day during WWII. |
I notice sometimes that people compare these conflicts to Vietnam, well, we lost almost 60,000 men in Vietnam. In terms of the cost it doesn't even hold a candle to that war.
That's no statement on whether this is worth the sacrifice, it's just a statement that the two are not even in the same ballpark.