Putting War Casualties in Perspective

52,000 U.S. soldiers suffered serious physical wounds during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.  These are the men and women who were lucky enough to make it out of the war zones alive.

52,000 is a hard number to comprehend.  Here are a few attempts to put the number of war casualties in perspective:

• 52,000 is nearly identical to the entire student body at the University of Texas in Austin    
• 52,000 is slightly more than the total number of adult males in Jackson, Mississippi (the state capital)
• 52,000 almost equals the combined number of people working in the U.S. forest, conservation and logging industries
• 52,000 is the total number of employees at Google

Now imagine a scenario where each subset of people listed above have all sustained serious injury. 

The potential ingenuity, productivity, enjoyment and resources created by these 52,000 people at full strength is immense.  Thanks to these two invasions we have all sustained a great magnitude of loss with the steepest burden felt by the surviving war veterans.