Rural soldiers more likely to die in Iraq, Afghanistan

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8690

December 18th, 2006 1:24 pm
Rural soldiers more likely to die in Iraq, Afghanistan

Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. - Christopher Wasser was like a lot of soldiers from rural areas.

The Ottawa native saw the military as a way to pay for college, said his mother, Candy Wasser.

Wasser joined the Marine Corps in 2001 and was among the first to invade Iraq two years later.

On a second deployment there in April 2004, he gained another common characteristic for rural soldiers. He was killed, dying from shrapnel wounds in Anbar Province.

According to a study released last month by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, the death rate per million population aged 18 to 54 was 60 percent higher for soldiers from rural areas compared with those from urban areas or the suburbs.

In Kansas, 29 of the 42 soldiers who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan hailed from rural communities.

Researchers said the higher death rate is linked to higher enlistment because of smaller job opportunities in rural areas. That means combat deaths are felt more keenly in rural parts of the country.

"For a lot of small towns and rural communities, the war's not abstract," said Dee Davis, president of the Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies. "In rural America, people know who's actually fighting."

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if we catapult the propaganda right.

Why the FUCK join the Corps?

The title, "Rural soldiers more likely to die in Iraq, Afghanistan", makes it sound like an individual rural soldier has a higher chance of dying than an individual urban or suburban soldier.

This sentence:Seems to back that up.

But further on it says: This means that there are more rural soldiers dying because there are more rural soldiers, which is different from what the title says. I'm pretty certain that this is the correct interpretation since I can't see any reason rural soldiers would individually be more likely to die. But, like I said, this article is confusing.

more are dying.

"Most Soldiers Dying are from Rural Areas."

The soldiers from our area who have died have been from small towns. The high school I went to sent a lot of kids to the military.

That last sentence was right. We do know who's actually fighting.

They need to know how to go from alley to alley and roof top to roof top

See other posts upthread--the article's evidence is that there are more soldiers from rural areas than from other parts of the country. It's not that they don't know how to fight in an urban area. It's more that they constitute a larger percentage of the military.

I wonder if they'd be better placed in Afghanistan, which sounds more like where they grew up