Remembering America's Soldiers…With Charts

[Playinghardball]

Source: Mother Jones
By Dave Gilson

How long should you spend commemorating Memorial Day? It can be accomplished in just 60 seconds if you follow a 2000 presidential memo from Bill Clinton that encouraged Americans "to pause for one minute at 3:00 p.m. (local time) on Memorial Day, to remember and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all." That comes out to 0.0000446 seconds of reflection for each of the approximately 1.3 million Americans who have died in uniform since the earliest days of the republic (according to Wikipedia).

If you have some more time, check out these charts about those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Let's start with a quick review of the biggest conflicts in American history:

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/05/memorial-day-military-casualty-charts

[graywarrior]

1. Wow. Interesting article.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Good post but note that the Civil War dead are Union Soldiers only...

Add in both sides and you'd see a shockingly tall bar in the graph.