The strange case of DOD changing Korean War casualty statistics

whitehall

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Dec 28, 2010
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The official tally of Americans killed during the Korean War is engraved on a granite block at the National Korean War memorial, 54,246 . During Bill Clinton's term the DOD figures were changed to 35,000 or 36,000 Americans killed during the Korean war. What happened? The truth is that anything can happen during a liberal democrat administration. One account is that the DOD said "whoops we made a clerical error". Another account is that liberal democrats decided that the appalling statistics of the 3 year Korean War should be softened. The way to do it would be to count only the KIA numbers on the mainland. Those Sailors who were killed in accidents aboard Aircraft Carriers or Soldiers who died in training accidents or under any other circumstance other than combat during the Korean conflict would be dropped from the new "official statistics". It seems strange singling out the three year Korean war when the statistics for the nearly ten year VietNam war rightfully include every member of the Military who died during that time.
 
Google up the "official" Korean War casualty list and you will get something like 35,500. It's an appalling figure but the Korean monument still says 54,246 and it hasn't been hammered out yet by the new political activists in the Department of Defense. Who is right? All US Military conflicts at least in the 20th century include the honored dead as every member of the Military who died during the conflict whether from malaria or a fire aboard a ship...except Korea.
 
From 2000:

U.S. death toll from Korean War revised downward, Time reports - CNN

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The Pentagon says a clerical error mistakenly added more than 20,000 noncombatant deaths to the toll of U.S. dead in the Korean War, Time Magazine reported on Sunday.
The Pentagon has revised the number of U.S. soldiers killed during the war from 54,246 to 36,940, the magazine said.


The higher figure has been quoted since shortly after both sides declared a truce in 1953.


Time said the Pentagon blamed the error on a government clerk, who mistakenly added the 20,617 nonbattlefield military deaths that occurred worldwide during the three-year conflict to the more than 33,000 U.S. battlefield fatalities.
 
Democrats hate it that the ChiComs started the Korean War shortly after Joe McCarthy started warning us about Communist influence at US State. It flies in the face of the fictional narrative that it was Senator McCarthy who drummed up a "Red Scare" entirely on his own.

Why do you think it's the "Forgotten War"? Because our Progressive public education system wants us to forget it ASAP
 
Killed in Action 23,615
Died of Wounds 2,459
Died While Missing (MIA) 4,821
Died While Captured (POW) 2,847
Total: 33,742
NON-BATTLE DEATHS 2,830

TOTAL DEATHS IN THEATER: 36,516

DIED ELSEWHERE (Worldwide during Korean War) 17,730
MIA - KIA Korean War

Is there a "died elsewhere" clause in any other US conflict? It would be impossible to cite "died elsewhere" during WW2 since the conflagration extended to almost every part of the world but what about VietNam? Did they separate the "died elsewhere" from the honored dead who were killed in VietNam? I don't think so. The number 17,730 seems unnaturally high for 3 years of non combat. Were the 17,730 who died in other areas of conflict between 1950 and 1953 cheated out of their rightful claim of honored Korean dead?
 
According to statistics there were 10,797 non combat deaths in VietNam during the ten years between 1965 and 1975 and they were rightfully included in the overall list of honored Vietnam dead. How could 17,730 American Military personnel die between 1950 and 1953 and not be accounted for? What happened to them? Was there a war we didn't know about while Korea was going on?
 
Military personnel deaths in "peacetime" seem to average around 2,000 per year from all causes especially auto accidents. Average numbers of non combat Military deaths during the three year Korean war should be around 6,000. How did the other 11,000 people die?
 

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