of 100 Female Service members killed in Iraq. 39 are non-hostile

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/24/iraq.main/index.html

100 female U.S. service members have died in Iraq

61 of them have been classified as hostile -- occurring during combat or enemy attacks -- and 39 have been non-hostile.

What happened to these women ? Ask your Representives how many woman have been killed in Iraq.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=161174&mesg_id=161174

Reading replies there I see you did, but I'll include it here anyway. What. The. Hell!

If you saw the DN piece, Dr.Johnson spoke of many other female service members who were abused.
It is uncalled for! There are so many female Veterans who are walking wounded and it needs to be brought out into the open again and again.

of us. I'm in the military...thanks for your assumption. And no, I don't believe those women were killed and raped by their own military...I'm on my 4th tour and it's not like Roadhouse over here. I'm sure things do happen of a criminal nature...they always do in any group of people. But the military is pretty strict on things such as sexual assault, etc.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3665198&mesg_id=3665198

The "contractors" are by far the worst, but this is nothing new. What surprises me is that so many people are so surprised when this shit comes up.

It does...in any population, rape and assault occur. However, I think some of this paints the picture that 90% of all the guys in the military are a bunch of thugs ready to drag a girl off to a tent, and that's NOT the case.

BTW, I come from a very long and distinguished military background (stretches back roughly twice as long as we've been a country), so I'm very familiar with the military tradition and those that enter the services.

If you are honest, you will have to admit that you know of several people that should not be in uniform. Of course, this maladministration has, like everything else the little asshole has ever touched, degraded the service and through appointing hacks, incompetents, and political lackeys, stripped it of the ability to perform as it could.

Then again I'm in a flying unit. Most of the people in my unit are a little more motivated than in other units. I've been in the military for 16 years, and I've known some crude people, but no one that I sat and thought "man, he's likely to rape someone". Then again, most of the rapes in the civilian world are carried out by friends and people that appear "normal". It's been said that about that same number of women have been raped outside the military...I know more women that were NOT in the military who have been raped than those that are in the military...I'm not saying that means much, but it's what I know.

My point is, before singling out the military as this bad institution, lets look around for a minute...it's not much different from what you'd see in any section of America.

And for what it's worth, I also come from a long and distinguished background...I've been in 16 years...my father did 20, my grandfather 30 (wwII, Korea and vietnam x 2), my great grandfather did 20, and it goes back to the revolutionary war. My ancestor actually formed his own regiment in Maryland and fought alongside George Washington. And I dont think that makes me any more of an expert on the subject of rape than you are.

The military is different, to deny that is to deny reality. In the real world few are trained, let alone prepared, to kill another human being as a matter of course. You and I both know that things are done on a daily basis that would shock most civilians and a civil society cannot function under a military rule. Now I know that many officers might argue that point, but history dictates otherwise.

The bottom line is that the military is an organization trained in the use and application of violence, and that culture is logically going to attract a higher percentage of violent people than, say, banking.

Those are seperate stats. The "non-combat" losses are due to accidents, such as vehicle accidents, weapons accidentally discharging, and other things. If you think it's a big conspiracy, trust me, it happens...I'm over here now and an Army sergeant died not too long ago due to an accident. I've seen a photo of a guy who decided to put a blasting cap in his mouth...guys (and girls) have died when their weapons went off either from carelessness or due to malfunctions. And there have been lots of vehicle accidents...that's probably the most common form of non-hostile deaths.

This isn't to say, of course, that women do not participate in combat, but...

in fact you would expect them to increase. One issue is the the average age of national guardsmen and reserves is usually much higher than the regular forces.

The type of accidents that could happen in the US on base or just driving around during rush hour traffic. That I assume is why they differentiate between combat and non-combat. But it would help clarify if they would tell how many service women died in the US during an equal amount of time.