STONY BROOK, N.Y., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- On the 10th anniversary of war in Afghanistan, U.S. researchers say most American troops killed in combat were white men who had completed high school.
Michael Zweig, Michael Porter and Yuxiang Huang of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook said the report was based on a reading of obituaries and tribute pages for each of the 1,446 U.S. military personnel -- 23 were women -- who died in Afghanistan from October 2001 to the end of 2010, and analysis of U.S. Census and other data for the communities from where they came.
Of the 1,446 U.S. military personnel who died in Afghanistan:
-- 89 percent were white.
-- 8 percent were black.
-- 1 percent were American Indian.
-- 2 percent were Asian.
Of the 1,265 fatalities that reported educational levels:
-- 67 percent graduated from high school.
-- 12 percent completed a four-year college degree.
-- 10 percent completed some college.
-- 4.6 percent graduated from a military academy.
-- 3.6 percent had an associate's degree.
-- 2 percent did not complete high school.
Of the 1,446 casualties, 31 percent died at age 22 or younger and 71 percent died before age 30. The greatest share of casualties came from the South and Midwest, but the highest casualty rates were in rural and small cities (population under 50,000) in the Northeast. Forty-one percent came from suburban counties of major metropolitan areas and just 7 percent from rural counties, the researchers said.
Casualties did not come from the poorest cities and counties but disproportionately from counties with somewhat lower than median income typical of solidly working-class communities, the report said.
