This is a story that ran in the local paper. It really hit home to me.
The separation of the American Public and Military has been growing more and more lately, and it's these kind of statistics that show the growing gap between rural communities and urban ones.
Full ArticleDouglas Fischer wrote:
Five years into the war in Iraq, not one service member from Oakland has been killed in battle. Sixty miles to the east, the ranching and bedroom community of Tracy, one-fifth Oakland's size, has lost seven soldiers to the war.
San Francisco has had three of its residents perish, while the Central Valley towns of Modesto, Stockton and Bakersfield - with a combined population equal to that of San Francisco - have buried 20 men and women. Detroit, a city of 900,000, has lost one, the same as Ismay, Mont., with a population of 26. It's a pattern that is repeating throughout nation: a disproportionate share of the war's casualties hail from rural areas.
The separation of the American Public and Military has been growing more and more lately, and it's these kind of statistics that show the growing gap between rural communities and urban ones.
*Shakes head and walks away.*Nearly 4,000 service members have died in the war since fighting began March 19, 2003. Almost 2,400 of the dead hailed from cities and towns with a population of 80,000 or less. Meanwhile, 537 have died from cities larger than 300,000.
Put another way: For every 100,000 people living in a large city in this country, one service member has died in Iraq. For every 100,000 people living in this country's smallest cities and towns, two troops have perished.