In Vietnam, 13,262 Southerners in the US Army died. On a per capita basis this is 12% more than the rest of the country. In other words, Southerners were 31% of the total US population and accounted for 36% of the Army deaths in Vietnam.
A similar story is true for Korea. Southerners accounted for 35% of the deaths in the Army and were 32% of the population. For World War II the statistics appear to tell the opposite story. Southerners accounted for 11% fewer casualties on a per capita basis than their Northern and Western brothers.
It is difficult to find US Army casualty statistics by race prior to the Korean War. We do know a few things though. The army was segregated until 1948 and those blacks who saw combat did so in black units. Most blacks in the army in WWII served in non-combat roles. John Hope Franklin and other sources indicate one million black Americans served during World War II and 500,000 served overseas. According to many sources, fewer than one-thousand black Americans died in WWII. There were a total of 308,544 US Army and Army Air Force deaths in WWII.
In 1940, 9.9 million of the 12.7 million black Americans lived in the South. Since most blacks in the Army were not in combat, it is correct to reduce the Southern population by 9.9 million and the overall population by 12.7 million to normalize the data. The result is an Army death rate for Southerners that is 6% greater than the rest of the country.
That admittedly tortured review was to get us to an important fact: Southerners sacrificed more of their sons in the 20th century than the rest of the country. To Southerners this is not a surprise. There is an undeniable service and warrior ethos south of the Mason-Dixon. The question is whether it will remain given how modern America likes to portray and treat the South.
There are signs that the United States will not be able to count on the South for a disproportionate contribution any longer. Military recruiting is down. There is anecdotal evidence Southern veterans are not encouraging the next generation to serve. The destruction of memorials to Southern dead in cemeteries, lying about Southern history, and demonizing ancestors was never going to be consequence free.
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Sources:
https://history.army.mil/html/documents/casualties/stcas.html
World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing, June 1946; Battle Casualties of the Army, 30 September 1954; List of Casualties Incurred by U.S. Military Personnel in Connection with the Conflict in Vietnam, 30 September 1975.
U.S. Census Bureau
Calculations by Garrick Sapp
Well said!
The disrespect shown to our own ancestors should not be free of charge. Vandalize our memorials? Remove Confederate monuments in cemeteries in Arlington? I thought that’s where the monuments belonged according to the woke (“museums and cemeteries”).
Remove southern names from bases? Were these not men worthy of respect and honor according to their own people?
DIG UP THE GRAVES OF OUR DEAD AND REMOVE THEIR BODIES?!!
My family (from NC and SC) has military vets that have said if they knew then what they know now, they would have made different choices. They are not happy with what is happening in this country – and those who lead it now down this determined path of destruction are not worthy of the sacrifices that so many have made to defend it.
The enemy will always tell you what they are afraid of. In this case, they remain afraid of the cause that these men fought for; freedom from a tyrannical invader, self-governance, reliance upon God – independence from a centralized cabal that pushes its banking schemes, designed to enslave generations.
Any goodwill that may have existed between the north and south is gone as far as I’m concerned. I exclude our northern copperhead brothers – but the north can defend their own empire. The US today happily pushes an agenda of moral alphabet perversion at home and globally – and actively seeks the cultural genocide of the (historically) majority of its own defenders! I do not see it leaving this path ever, even if it’s delayed by the occasional election that doesn’t go its way….the few dark souls and corporate cronies who control this country have chosen to re-define it – and no one wanted it or asked for it.
It may not have always been the case, but it has become a truly a dysfunctional union – plus the country is just too big. Look at the size of European countries and compare it to individual states in the US. There is a reason we are divided….we’ve always been at least two countries and maybe more. We would not continually ride this political pendulum back and forth if we had a cohesive, common culture with common ideals.
I heard that Biden chose the 80th D-Day event to chastise Japan (and India) about their lack of diversity. Those two will outlast the US and the reason is simple: a common culture. They rightfully and quickly dismissed Biden’s suggestions.
There is never any period of rest or mental ease in this country anymore. One side gets elected, the other side waits to see what is going to be done to them. Rinse and repeat every 4 years.
We should look forward to being free from it and direct our energies elsewhere versus sending our kids to defend a nation that is more focused on killing and/or perverting the rest of the world and destroying its own history. Nothing it represents today is worthy of the death of good, brave men and women.
Honor all or honor none. We are either part of it or we are not.
We never surrendered the right to show respect to or remember our own with statues, monuments, memorials, cemeteries, flags, parades and whatever else the hell we want to do.
“There is anecdotal evidence Southern veterans are not encouraging the next generation to serve.”
I believe it is more than anecdotal. I speak from time to time around coffee-shop talk with former U.S.M.C. friends. The general (unanimous as far as I can tell) consensus is that these former Southerners would more likely encourage the younger boys (men) to wrestle with a truck full of skunks than to sign up with the gutter trash running Washington and the Pentagon!
Quite a number of years ago (and at 83, I cannot remember HOW long ago, but it wasn’t recent!) I read of a man whose son was rejected by a Marine Corps recruiter because he had a tattoo of a Confederate battle flag on his arm. The father, a former Marine, went down to the recruiting station and asked the man there if this was the case ~ and he said yes. At that, the father brought out a host of medals and honors he had won during his service and threw them in the station’s trash saying that if his son wasn’t good enough for the Marines because he honored his Southern heritage, than the Marine Corps wasn’t good enough for his son or himself. This garbage has been going on a long time!
“…and to keep their honor clean…”
Not anymore.
Every stripe on the US flag represents a slave State.
Thanks for crunching the numbers! I too suggests to my young kinfolks not to join any US forces. Until the DoD recognizes Southern heroes and takes up a defensive position., then I do not have any blood to give.