U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Taylor Green talks to his soldiers before an air assault mission on the Qual-e Jala village, in Afghanistan, Feb. 21, 2011. Green is assigned to the 34th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, Task Force Redhorse. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ashlee Lolkus
A U.S. Soldier’s Odds of Dying in Historic Wars -- Geek System
According to Nicholas Hobbes’ Essential Militaria, what follows are the odds of death that U.S. soldiers faced in eleven wars throughout history. No one talks much about the Mexican War today, but on a person-by-person basis, it was four times as deadly as Vietnam.
• War of Independence: 2 percent (1 in 50)
• War of 1812: 0.8 percent (1 in 127)
• Indian Wars: 0.9 percent (1 in 106)
• Mexican War: 2.2 percent (1 in 45)
• Civil War: 6.7 percent (1 in 15)
• Spanish-American War: 0.1 percent (1 in 798)
• World War I: 1.1 percent (1 in 89)
• World War II: 1.8 percent (1 in 56)
• Korean War: 0.6 percent (1 in 171)
• Vietnam War: 0.5 percent (1 in 185)
• Persian Gulf War: 0.03 percent (1 in 3,162)