The Human Cost of War, Part II

So last week, I requested information from the Department of Defense about how many troops have been deployed to Iraq since the initial invasion. They sent me back a surprisingly helpful chart detailing total deployment numbers. I've posted the whole thing here, but in case you don't want to look at the whole thing, here are some highlights:

• Total "Number of Members Currently Deployed:" 275,981. This is in startling contrast with the number we frequently hear discussed in the press, which hovers around 170,000, depending on who's talking. I'm going over this with Wyl, and even if you only count the number of troops on active duty, you still end up with well over 200,000 troops, so I'm guessing they're only talking about Army soldiers (169,076). [EDIT: Or, they're referring to active duty ground troops: If you only count active duty Army and Marines, you get 164,207).
  
• Total "Number of Members Ever Deployed:" 1,599,432. Subtracting out the dead, we now have almost 1.6 million veterans of the war in Iraq.
• Total "Number of Members With More than One Deployment:" 540,306. This means if you've ever been deployed, you've got almost exactly a 1 in 3 chance that you have been or will be deployed more than once.
  
• "Total Deployment Events:" 2,401,464. Those 1.6 million troops have served 2.4 million tours of duty over the course of four and a half years. If you add up the troops that have been deployed and the number that have served more than one tour, you end up with . . .
• 261,726 soldiers who have been deployed more than twice. That is, of course, almost as many troops as we currently have in Iraq.
  

These numbers were provided to me upon request by the Department of Defense. These numbers are current as of August 31, 2007, and include both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. These numbers make me feel ill.