Soldiers from Rural America Account for Disproportionate Share of U.S. Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

Soldiers from rural America account for a disproportionate share of U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. 26 percent of the U.S. military personnel killed in the two wars lived in rural areas back home. But rural regions currently hold only 19 percent of the total adult U.S. population. These statistics come from a new fact sheet published by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.

Rural families are paying a disproportionately high price for the wars, the report's author was cited as saying in a press release issued on the University of New Hampshire website. The author, William P. O'Hare, is a senior fellow at the Carsey Institute. The data used to create the factsheet was gleamed from reports issued by the U.S. Department of Defense, according to the press release.

The fact sheet is titled "Rural Americans Continue to Account for Disproportionate High Share of U.S. Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan". It says that 1102 of the 4,197 U.S. military personnel killed in the two wars hailed from rural areas back home.

The fact sheet also said that 31 out of every million rural American adults have been killed in the two wars. A smaller ratio of urban adults have been killed in the wars, with casualty rates among urban dwellers hitting 21 per million. A similar study done last year showed casualty rates among rural Americans at 24 per million and among urban dwellers at 15 per million.

Vermont experienced the highest rate of war related deaths. Including both rural and urban dwellers, casualty rates hit 47 killed per million adults in. Sixty-one out of every million Vermonters living in rural regions of the Green Mountain State were killed in the wars, making the state the leader in that category as well.

High rates of enlistment among young adults living in rural Americans help to explain the disproportionate number of rural Americans dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Transitioning from youth to adulthood is more problematic in rural America because there are fewer job opportunities," O'Hare was cited as saying in the UNH press release. He has also pointed out that unemployment rates are at 9 percent for rural Americans aged 18 to 24. They lie at seven percent among urban Americans of the same age group.

Mil Duncan, the Carsey Institute's director, was also quoted in the press release. He said that diminishing job opportunities have translated into higher numbers of military casualties for rural Americans. He cited the loss of traditional rural jobs in the farming, fishing, mining, and manufacturing to globalization as troubling signs of diminishing opportunities for the country's rural youth. "As these opportunities disappear, rural youths are enlisted in the Armed Forces not only because patriotic, but also to find a path to a more promising future.

The Carsey Institute studies issues facing rural American communities across the country. The fact sheet was the second annual report published by the institute on the subject of rural American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.