The Associated Press April 04, 2003
Accidental deaths are part of military at war
By Gary D. Robertson
One man is electrocuted when he touches a live wire. Two drown and five more are killed in automobile wrecks.
Such tragic accidents are common in American life. And military officials and analysts say they're not unusual in wartime either.
Of the 81 coalition troops reported dead in Iraq as of late Friday, only 38 had been killed in action, according to military reports.
Of the remaining 43, 21 died in helicopter accidents, while 10 others died in accidents on land.
One Camp Lejeune Marine will be buried in upstate New York on Saturday, two weeks after the accidental discharge of a .50-caliber machine gun. In another possible accident, a soldier and a journalist were killed Thursday when their Humvee went into a canal.
Also killed was Marine Lance Cpl. Brian E. Anderson, 26, of Durham, who died Wednesday when he apparently grabbed a low-hanging power line while atop of a truck.
"Just because you sign on the dotted line and serve with Uncle Sam doesn't mean you're immune from accidents," said Patrick Garrett, an associate analyst with Alexandria, Va.-based public policy group Global Security.org. "The military is extremely safety-conscious. Their job is extremely dangerous enough without having to worry about accidents."
Non-hostile deaths - defined as deaths that are not the direct result of fighting the enemy or friendly fire - have been a part of warfare for centuries. In the Civil War, the main cause was disease: Union soldiers were more likely to die from dysentery, tuberculosis or pneumonia than from a Confederate bullet.
The incidence of disease has fallen during modern warfare, but vehicle wrecks, accidentally discharged weapons and other non-combat deaths remain a significant problem, especially in short-lived conflicts.
In World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the large majority of servicemen killed died from enemy fire. Ninety-one percent of U.S. casualties in Korea came in combat.
But in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 235 of the 380 deaths, or 62 percent, were considered non-hostile, according to Defense Department statistics. Some experts attribute the large percentage of non-combat deaths to fighting a quick ground war on uncertain terrain.
Still, Duke University's Alex Roland believes the U.S. military is suffering too many non-hostile deaths, particularly given the high levels of training and technology involved.
There will be accidental deaths "simply because of the pace of operations," said Roland, a Marine who served in Vietnam. But "something's wrong here. We're taking more than we should."
Another retired Marine sees the numbers differently.
"You've got tens of thousands of troops operating on the battlefield, and thousands of vehicles and hundreds of artillery" units, said Phil Anderson, a senior fellow at Washington's Center for Strategic & International Studies. "With these sheer numbers, this coalition has been very successful in terms of reducing the loss of life across the board."
While it's still early in the current conflict, a military spokeswoman said efforts to train servicemen and officers to reduce risks on post and in the fog of war are paying off.
"You train how to fight and accidents are going to happen," said Diane Perry, a Defense Department spokeswoman. "We try our best to minimize them and learn from these tragic errors."
The Army and the Marines have suffered all but a few of the U.S. military's 57 fatalities in the current conflict. Both service branches emphasize training soldiers to be alert to potential hazards.
The Army said it has reduced accident rates since the late 1980s by teaching a five-part risk-management strategy: identify hazards; assess hazards; develop controls and make decisions; implement controls; and supervise and evaluate.
Maj. Jan Hunen kept a laminated card listing the five steps in his wallet when he led a platoon in the 1991 Gulf war. Reviewing it helped take "some of the instinct and emotions out of a decision," Hunen said. That strategy is shaping decisions of many Army leaders in the Iraqi war, he said.
In the past, Marine Corps commanders have ordered stand-downs to review safety measures. The corps commandant called for a worldwide stand-down in February 2002 after 36 Marines died in a six-month period, many from accidents.
The challenge, military officials say, is keeping soldiers focused on driving and handling weapons safely even as their lives are under threat from the enemy.
"Things happen so quickly," the Defense Department's Perry said.
On the Net:
U.S. Army Safety Center: http://safety.army.mil/home.html
GlobalSecurity.org: http://globalsecurity.org/
Center for Strategic & Innternational Studies: http://www.csis.org/
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
