Noteworthy Numbers

Those convinced that the global war on Islamist terror has been mismanaged will have a hard time processing a recent study of military casualties published by the Congressional Research Service. Even for those who have been impressed by the military's professionalism during the present conflict, the facts are noteworthy.

During President Carter's last year as commander-in-chief, more active American military personnel died than during any year of the global war on terror. In that year, 1980, 2,392 Americans in uniform lost their lives, 534 more than in 2006, the nadir of what many public officials and columnists were then calling the worst military blunder in American history.

And 1980 wasn't even the deadliest peacetime year for American soldiers. Between 1980, the earliest year for which data is readily available, and 1985, annual American military deaths numbered above 2,000 for every year except one, when they numbered 1,999. Not until 1988 did annual military deaths fall below the highest yearly number suffered by the military since the war on terror began.

No conflict explains the high military losses suffered during the 1980s. Lieutenant Colonel Les Melynk, a Pentagon spokesman, told The New York Sun that the military's increased emphasis on safety was the primary cause of the declining death totals. The facts support his explanation. In 1980, accidents caused 1,556 military fatalities, almost three times more than in 2006, when American forces battled insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the obvious exception of hostile action, military deaths have also declined precipitously in every other conceivable category since 1980.

The overall size of the military has shrunk since 1980, to 1.6 million soldiers from 2.2 million, but that should not detract from the military's accomplishment. While fighting and defeating one of the most ruthless enemies America has faced, the military has managed to lose fewer men than were once lost in peacetime.

America has never taken lightly the sacrifice of its soldiers in war. Commitment to victory always exists beside an equally strong concern for the lives of the men and women who must win it. Yet even in the context of America's record in this regard, the military's twin commitment, to victory and to the safety of its soldiers, has been, in the present fight, nothing less than extraordinary.