The Effect of War

Mencken had a realistic view of death. He scoffed at a romantic view of death in war. He wrote in "Exeunt Omnes": "Let us not have too much hope.The chances are that, if we go to war, eager to leap superbly at the cannon's mouth, we'll be finished on the way by being run over by an army truck driven by a former bus-boy and loaded with imitation Swiss cheeses made in Oneida, NY."

Considering the way the modern Pentagon parses casualties in Iraq, Mencken's relevance to modern life is clear, even though Mencken wrote these things in 1915.

Here's a site that counts casualties in Iraq:
http://icasualties.org/oif/HNH.aspx

Here's a wikipedia entry, but the US military does not seem to release casualty statistics involving traffic accidents involving military injuries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003

Mencken would have hated that sort of coverup, but he would not have been surprised.