Who is keeping per capita statistics by state on disproportionate soldiers in Iraq?
In the course of reading Michael Powell’s WaPo article on the fervor for impeachment in the Northeast, we came across an assertion that seemed strange:
Here in Massachusetts and Vermont, though, in the back roads and on the streets of Holyoke and Springfield, the discontent with Bush is palpable. These are states that, per capita, have sent disproportionate numbers of soldiers to Iraq. Many in these middle- and working-class towns are not pleased that so many friends and cousins are coming back wounded or dead.
How very odd, we thought. Someone is tallying up per capita deployments of soldiers by state? Someone is doing the arithmetic to determine what is and is not disproprotionate? Someone is going through all these gyrations to make an anti-Bush political point? Why? (We have sent an email request for the source of this information, but have not heard back yet.) Meanwhile, the gross figures on deployment tell a somewhat different story, via the Globe, in that the absolute number of men from the Vermont National Guard in Iraq is tiny:
From a high of about 1,200 soldiers overseas, about 500 Vermont Guard members remain deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The largest number serves in Ramadi.
Additionally, 40 states have had the same or greater casualties as Vermont, according to this chart, and Vermont is ranked 49th by population, so that appears a tad disproportionate, but that is not a relevant statistic. The relevant statistic (if indeed it is relevant at these numbers of soldiers and casualties) would be the number of Vermonters who had volunteered for the armed forces, including the reserves, or perhaps some statistic utilizing the age cohort of soldiers. In any event, would these angry Vermonters be any less angry if the number of their neighbors from the Guard in Iraq was 384 or 422 instead of 500, or if the number of casualties was 17 rather than 24?
To be honest, we are not sure what precisely to make of all this, except it appears to us that these people must be angry indeed if they are going through all the work in order to be able to use the word “disproportionate.” Perhaps realignment works two ways; red states get redder, but blue states also may get bluer, as this tidbit from RCP might indicate.