Talk:United States Armed Forces

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Contents 1 Unfounded claim? 2 Merge needed 3 Source? 4 History/merged

[edit] Unfounded claim?

"The United States military is notorious for killing and injuring its own troops, and those of it's allies."

Has this claim got any founding??? If it does happen, it probably doesn't happen with intention, and it certainly isn't notorious for it (not with me, at least). jheijmans

• Playing wargames, I know that almost all sides in WWII bombed their own troops by accident, I wouldn't say the US was notorious for it, unless you go by M*A*S*H episodes. I'm removing the phrase. If someone wants to provide actual examples and documentation they're welcome to...

Rgamble

• There is a WW II joke - between a German soldier and a English soldier, the German says "When the Luftwaffe bomb you duck; when the RAF bombs we duck; when the Americans bomb everybody ducks!". And see AMERICAN FRIENDLY-FIRE NOTEBOOK which states 21% of American WW II casualties were friendly fire, rising to almost 50% by the Gulf War.
  • My concern was with the word 'notorious'. I have heard the above joke (just this weekend in fact). To show the notoriety, I would want to see a comparison of friendly fire casualties among nations. I don't know that the Gulf War is a good comparison. To be honest, the Iraqi's didn't have as great a chance of causing casualties as Germany did to the US in WWII, so of course the ratio would go up. Anyhow, I have no objections to the info being there if it's verified that it's significantly higher than most other countries' performances (or lack thereof). --Rgamble
    • The National Review lists a 1993 study of military hospital records for the wars from World War II to the Gulf War and mentions that the conclusion was a composite friendly fire rate of 15%. This is lower than any individual war estimate on the American Friendly Fire Notebook site which does not list its sources. Of course, the military always has its own motive for making itself look better. --rmhermen

[edit] Merge needed

This page needs to be merged with United States armed forces. IMHO, United States armed forces is a much better title of the page as that's a term people in the United States might actually use, but I understand there's been some sort of standardization here. DanKeshet

[edit] Source?

Military manpower - availability: males age 15-49: 70,502,691 (2000 est.)

Military manpower - fit for military service: males age 15-49: 2,056,762 (2000 est.)

Where did this come from? I doubt that only 2.85% of the 15-49 population is fit for military service. Somewhere on the order of 80 - 90% would be more like it. When I have seen stats like these used, it is in order to give an idea of what the nation could conceivably be capable of, if worse came to worse. Possibly this is meant as a guide to how many could be diverted from the civilian economy without causing serius problems? Dobbs 14:53 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Originally it came from the CIA factbook but I don't know how they derive the numbers. They do seem odd, don't they? --rmhermen

Found it. World Factbook lists fit for military service as N/A. Reaching military age annually is 2,039,414 (2001 est.) - that's what it is, I'll change it. Dobbs 15:51 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

[edit] History/merged

The article whose history is now here (not sure where it was originally) was merged into the article now at Military of the United States, which is why the history is here now - because it was merged into the current article, we have to keep it accessible. Noel (talk) 02:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)