Last month marked the first time in over a decade that we saw zero fatalities among US troops in combat.
With April upon us, we should pause for a moment to recognize a monumental fact about March 2014.
According to the Department of Defense, last month marked the first time in over a decade that we saw zero fatalities among US troops in combat.
In the years that followed 2003′s engagement of American troops overseas, countless deaths have transpired in Iraq, Afghanistan and a handful of other conflict areas in which the US operates more covertly. By November 2011 alone, the death toll reached 4,474 in Iraq.
The recent findings, drawn from a data aggregation site called iCasualites that generates fatality figures based on Pentagon intel, reveal that July 2007 marked the last month to see zero American fatalities.
The death toll apex came in July of 2010, in which 65 Americans lost their lives. At the time of this writing, 3,481 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
Although no US fighters died in March 2014, two allied soldiers did fall. What’s more telling, is that 16 Iraqi civilians died this past weekend alone.
By Liz Rowley
This post originally appeared at Elite Daily. Reprinted with permission.
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LIZ ROWLEY Writer/editor by day, music journalist by night, Liz is her best self when she is reporting. She earned degrees in Politics and French from Bates College in Maine, but more importantly discovered a niche for herself at the campus radio station. A tireless new music hound, she enjoys timeless novels, distant lands, all plant life, photography and running. Technically from Chicago but raised abroad by a pair of foreign correspondents, wanderlust and writing intersect at her core.
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Photo: AP/File