Training

to reduce

accidents


The post-conflict U.S. death toll in Iraq has reached 50 and Americans are agitated. We want those troops held safe.

Where is matching outrage for ongoing noncombat military deaths, averaging five a day every day for the past 30 years?

The post-conflict deaths in Iraq are definitely disturbing. We are responsible for the servicemen and women who have been dispatched there under orders. That responsibility extends to every member of the military, here and abroad, but has been too readily ignored.

Not all of the deaths in Iraq have been the direct result of the war. A number have died in auto and aviation accidents.

Military service is a dangerous occupation and accidents are part of that life.

As with any other occupation, though, the accident rate can be reduced through strict attention to training and safety measures. The military is losing ground on this front.

The military accident rate is rising as budgets tighten, training is consolidated, replacement parts are less available and inexperienced personnel are ordered out in the field. The Department of Defense has publicly acknowledged that, over the past 18 years, combat might actually be the safest place for U.S. military personnel.

That is unacceptable.

This compromise in military preparedness has occurred quietly and over time. We owe it to military personnel -in Iraq or not – to provide the best possible training because it’s the greatest safety net we can offer.

In 1999, Col. Mike Hostage, then-commander of the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, openly criticized the steady reduction in training time and support, believing noncombat troops are in danger. In Utah, where five planes crashed and one pilot died that year, Hostage argued that “every aviator is irreplaceable” and every plane lost to a training exercise is one less plane ready for combat.

The crashes in Utah are not isolated accidents.

In 2000, between April 8 and Dec. 11, 30 people were killed in aviation accidents; four in North Carolina, four in Texas, two in Virginia, two in Pennsylvania and 19 in Arizona. In a separate accident that year, a Marine was killed and a midshipman injured when they were both trapped between two five-ton trucks during a night training exercise at Camp Pendleton.

In 2001, six soldiers were killed in a helicopter training exercise in Hawaii and 3 crewmen and 18 passengers aboard a Virginia Air National Guard transport died when their Sherpa crashed in Georgia.

These accidents, and numerous auto wrecks, drownings, fires and other accidents have claimed more than 29,000 servicemen and women since 1979. The Boston Globe, which researched the noncombat deaths, found that an average of five military personnel die every day in training exercises, off-duty accidents, illness, homicides and suicides. That puts the noncombat death rate across all branches of service considerably higher than the rate we’re seeing in post-combat Iraq.

It it nearly inconceivable to believe that soldiers are safer in that ravaged country than in our own, but statistics suggest that is true.

As with any other occupation, the most direct path to safety is through training, both routine and hazardous.

During combat, the military is hyper vigilant about training, which contributes to the statistically safer atmosphere. That same vigilance must be brought to noncombatants stateside.
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