DaytonDailyNews.com

Letter to the Editor

In his letter to the Dayton Daily News, Associate General Counsel of the Peace Corps David Kotz states, “Finally, it is important to recognize that in the Peace Corps’ 42-year history, more than 170,000 Americans have served. . . .”

I thought it would be interesting to compare the death ratio of the Peace Corps with that of U.S. mil- itary forces in Iraq since the “end of armed hostilities” on May 1.

The Peace Corps has suffered approximately 250 deaths of the 170,000 volunteers. Since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 120 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq, according to Oct. 31st Defense Department figures, out of approximately 130,000 service members in Iraq.

Doing the arithmetic reveals that the Peace Corps has experienced 1.5 deaths per thousand, while the U.S. military in Iraq experiences 1.6 deaths per thousand. If potential Peace Corps volunteers were made aware of such a comparison, I doubt the volunteer lines would be very long.

Gary Grafel

Beavercreek

[From the Dayton Daily News: 11.04.2003]