Is Being in the Military America’s Most Dangerous Job?
Catching up on the news, I came across an article on CNN about America’s most dangerous jobs. A few paragraphs, the author, Les Christie, makes the following statement:
The BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] does not count combat deaths in its survey; if it did, the military would undoubtedly have qualified as America’s most dangerous job last year.
It’s a little surprising Mr. Christie would make that kind of statement and not provide us with any data. Granted the BLS doesn’t count combat deaths, but given how readily available that information is, it’s surprising Mr. Christie doesn’t assemble it himself.
So, I was curious. Was the military the most dangerous job? If so, how did it compare to fisherman, who did take the top at 118.4 deaths per 100,000?
First step was to find out the size of military. According to Wikipedia, the U.S. has the 2nd highest level active troops, at 1,426,710. (Note that China has just under a million more, at 2,255,000.)
Based on icasualties.org, which uses DoD data, there were 846 U.S. fatalities.
( 846 / 1,426,710 ) * 100,000 = 59.3 deaths per 100,000.
If my math is correct, that would place 4th in the Bureau’s list.
| Occupation | Deaths per 100,000 |
| Fishers and fishing workers | 118.4 |
| Logging workers | 92.9 |
| Aircraft pilots | 66.9 |
| U.S. Military | 59.3 |
| Structural iron and steel workers | 55.6 |
August 12th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I don’t think it’s a math issue. I think it’s job issue. There are MANY non-combative jobs that are diluting your numbers. I think for more accurate account you would have to make some type of distinction. Notice it says Aircraft pilots and not EVERYONE who works in the airplane or airline industry, because that would dilute the numbers.
So at the very least you’d have to split up military jobs somehow. That may be why they are not included as it could get complicated and then the endless arguments as to what is what. My 2 cents.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
I think the upshot here is that going into the military is extremely safe, right?
August 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
An interesting (albeit gruesome) question, but your inputs are flawed.
The number of servicemen and women listed is for all members of the US Armed Forces (note that the wikipedia reference is dead, however, so that would need to be verified). However, the number of fatalities you use is for Iraq ONLY, so it does not take into account, say, Afghanistan.
So, to derive a more accurate number, you would have to:
a) find a similar fataility listing for all deployments (heck, including recruits in boot camp) to use as your numerator; or
b) use only the total troops to serve in Iraq as your denominator. After all, not all 1.426 million were there.
The highest total deployment for 2006 was about 160,000 at one time. Now, I probably can’t get the exact number of individual service men & women to go through at that time, but even if you figure twice that number cycled through the country throughout the course of the year, you end up with:
(846/320,000) * 100,000 = 264.4 deaths per 100,000. Yikes!
August 14th, 2007 at 10:03 am
I would also be interested to see a further number with severe injuries included — say loss of limbs, severe brain injuries or blindness. Fishermen drown and lose fingers… but I don’t think lobsters are making IEDs…