U.S. military service casualties?

August 2, 2011 1:09 PM

Is there a site that lists ALL of the names of U.S. military service personal casualties from all wars/conflicts/etc?

I'm assume there are lists tracking current U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, but is there a site that compiles a (more) complete listing of all U.S. military personal deaths going back to the previous Gulf War, Vietnam, WW2, WW1, etc.

This information would need to be "free" and in the public domain, so any type of paid genealogy or ancestry style sites would not be appropriate.

Ideally there is a large database of these names maintained by the U.S. government somewhere? Any ideas or suggestions?

posted by jca to society & culture (4 answers total)

Numbers of war dead are in this article; page 23 tells you the different sites that list the names of war dead.
posted by jabes at 1:16 PM on August 2, 2011

US Iraq. As for other wars, VFW posts may have a listing of sorts since they would place flags for Veterans on Memorial Day.
posted by brent at 2:53 PM on August 2, 2011

Are you aware that to the military, "casualty" is not a synonym for "dead"? A casualty is any service person who cannot carry out their duties.

Casualties include:

dead
wounded
missing in action
deserted
under arrest (before trial)
imprisoned (after trial)
sick (disease and/or psych)
captured by the enemy

In the old days they didn't keep all that good of records, either. That was particularly the case in the Revolutionary War, where a fair number of patriot units came together in an ad hoc basis. For instance, I seriously doubt anyone has a complete list of the American men who participated in the battle of Lexington and Concord.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:35 PM on August 2, 2011

For the revolution, in particular, participation in patriot military units was treason against the crown. They had damned good reason not to keep records like that, for fear that they might be captured by the British and used to retaliate against their families.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:39 PM on August 2, 2011