What Were the Odds...

...of death for a soldier in any particular war?  Here's the answer, courtesy of Essential Militaria, via Gizmodo:

• 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)

You were about 200 times more likely to be killed in the Civil War than in the Persian Gulf War.  I know from other reading that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are slightly less risky for soldiers than even the Persian Gulf War.  I was a sailor at the end of the Vietnam War, never really at risk myself – but I certainly knew a lot of people who were at risk (and three who were killed there).   The Vietnam War, as recent as it was, was nearly 15 times riskier to the soldiers participating in it than the Persian Gulf War.  The difference in risk mainly has to do with technology (precision munitions, fantastically better sensors, communications) and medical care at the battlefront.  The ratio of combat troops to REMFs has actually gone up (meaning proportionally more soldiers in a war are actually in combat in recent wars than in past wars)...