We would all agree that the loss of even one life in a war is one too many!

Yet, in it's first 100 years of existence, over 683,026 Americans have lost their lives in wars, with the Civil War accounting for 623,026 of that total (91.2 percent). That war lasted nearly four years and the average number of killed on both sides was 427 daily.

Comparatively, in the next 100 years, a further 626,000 Americans died through two grand World Wars and several more localized conflicts.

� World War I lasted a year and a half and 116,708 Americans died ... an average of 160 dying daily.

� During World War II -a war that lasted almost five years - 407,316 Americans died ... an average of 220 dying daily.

� The Korean War lasted about three-years and a total of 36,914 Americans were killed ... an average of 34 dying daily.

� Vietnam was a nine-year war that saw 58,169 Americans killed ... or an average of 19 per day.

� There have been other conflicts in which a total of 101,976 Americans have died: War of Independence, Quasi-War, Barbary Wars, War of 1812, Seminole Wars I, II and III, Mexican-American War, the Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, Philippine War, Boxer War, Mexican Revolution, Haiti Occupation, El Salvador War, Beirut War, Persian Gulf War, Invasions of Grenada and Panama, Persian Gulf War, Somalian War, and the Bosnia War.

� To date, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has seen almost 4,500 Americans killed ... a significant drop in numbers killed in a war to two (2) per day, over a period of seven years!

What is apparent is that the present wars are bankrupting our country! What needs to be recognized by our government is that these are “religious wars” and we should never have gotten involved in the first place. If Muslims can't agree on which of their two religious sects is the correct one, then let them work that out among themselves. Apparently they choose to work it out by killing one another!

One only has to look at Ireland where deadly feuding between Catholics and Protestants has gone on for centuries.

And, despite the fact that we have “freedom of religion” in our own county, we have religious conflicts going on. (The fact that there are over 4,000 different Protestant sects in the United States confirms that we can't agree either!)

Joyce Hackett Smith Moore

Moravia