Pure math chads get to do whatever the fuck they want while being 100% right.
I would extend this to Chemical Engineering. Apparently it's the only type of Engineering where "speaking to random people in field-related jargon" is some sort of taboo.
American Maths
There are a lot of inconsistencies with how Americans count their own history when compared with others.
Usually, the method is a variation of data manipulation - the USA, almost consistently, fails to use its own statistical methods when other countries are concerned, and goes to great lengths to avoid giving accurate data about its history.
This doesn't just extend to their strange units of measurement - this is a hazard, especially since the subject is "America's Vanishing Military History" - the closer you look, the less significant it gets.
I will focus on the purported "Big Three" - the American Civil War, the First World War and the Second World War. The issue arises because military statistics should follow some kind of standard - while this exact standard differs from country-to-country, most give lengthy justifications, and indeed, some parts of the USA actually do follow a similar standard, and we will find out who that is, later on.
Civil War
The Civil War was fought within the United States and is the largest of the three by total death toll. While, at the time, this referred to an American war in America's borders, it is often given at face value when comparing the United States' experiences to other countries.
In this case, two figures are usually available:
Traditionally, the figure of 620,000 comes with a few asterisks attached. It refers to the total military dead - which is a different measurement from other countries, and is applied universally to refer to military deaths.
Most countries display this information, publicly, in a way which is unmistakable:
The Crimean War was
infamous for this. So many soldiers were killed by disease that it gives a completely warped perspective to the reality of the conflict - the war, ostensibly, was a battle in which Russia fought against an international coalition.
Instead, soldiers from every Army fought against a coalition of diseases.
This war took place from 1853 to 1856.
The United States, on the other hand, lists its value of 626,000 at
face-value and then compares this, directly, with other countries. This gives the false notion that America has actually, ever, had a "real war" - that its civil war is enough to justify warhawking abroad.
As you can see, the "official" military deaths for the Union Army in the Civil War are listed as 349,944.
Instead, they are either 62,916 and
some of the 40,789 - depending on the exact cause of death.
Other sources which give a detailed list
generally obscure this fact. This is appropriate, domestically, but Americans
may be so ill-advised as to consider these as comparable to any other country. They are
not. They are grotesquely inflated.
This gives, roughly, 100,000 to 110,000 for the Union side. By
any appropriate measure.
For the Confederacy, the same standard would give 94,000 combat deaths.
So in total, if you were to use the measurements which every other country on the planet uses, the American Civil War had around 200,000 combat deaths and 400,000 disease deaths.
This is not
600,000 combat deaths.
The First World War
Around 50 years after the end of the American Civil War, the First World War began.
The First World War was between European countries and their empires - it started as a snow-ball of "mutual defence agreements", not unlike NATO, and the two sides were:
The Entente, or sometimes, the
Allies - the largest of which were
Russia, the first of the three to enter the war,
France, and the
UK. All three were empires which spanned several continents.
The Central Powers were, primarily, the
German Empire, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the
Ottoman Empire. Geographically, these form a line which goes from the North Sea to the Red Sea.
The USA entered the war noticeably late, on very loose ground - and during their brief fighting, they
report that they had 116,516 fatalities. They
blatantly lie in this case. While the Civil War is legitimate, this is nothing more than propaganda and American seem to take it at face-value. Sometimes, they even
argue that the "real meaning" is somehow hidden deeply.
As you may see, this clearly says 1917-1918. Practically every country gives the same end-date; 11am on 11/11/1918. Eleventh of November is "Armistice Day", a holiday in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and many other countries.
However, their
actual fatalities, as presented at the time,
clearly show.
This is
slightly better.
I mean, it's less than
half of what they claimed but atleast they
openly state as much.
Except it's
still exaggerated. Every other country says 11/11, and post-war deaths are usually
not included.
Using the same standards as everyone else
usually does, the actual figures for Americans in the First World War are:
This is from General Pershing's list of the dead. This is a primary resource, and there
isn't really a better source.
It says, directly, that the total number of those killed in direct combat by the enemy was 12,779 - while a further 4922 died from their wounds.
This was America's actual contribution as an "Ally" yet they, generously, refer to themselves as:
So America, with fewer than 18,000
combat deaths
during the First World War, thinks it held a larger role in the First World War than the countries which have been, quite rudely, pushed out of this list.
Such as Serbia:
Now, why would America
overtly lie about its contribution to a war? Were they far away from it?
No. Canada had been fighting since the start, and are actually one of the most respected countries for their
bravery and "
enthusiastic approach to trench warfare" - reportedly being given the name, "Stormtroopers" by the Germans (prior to their own usage of the term)
They joined to get a seat at the negotiation table to carve up Europe. Fortunately, the other parties noticed and told them to "get fucked" and America, despite trying, didn't get any reparations for a war it didn't fight in. It
did profit, but this
massive, obvious display of carrion-feeding was not rewarded as much as Wilson had hoped.
Second World War
Once again, the United States seems to hold a different concept of what constitutes war.
In brief - the USA includes all of the above, and particularly,
accidental deaths as military fatalities.
This is a minor difference and forgivable in the other wars, because accidents were a similar figure across
all countries. During the Second World War, however, a new kind of accident was available - Aviation - which resulted in the majority of deaths.
The "lower" figure, here, shows the reality for the US Army. Unlike their, surprisingly, honourable colleagues, the US Army is
full of shit. I had no idea why the USMC were seen as different until I checked.
The US Navy lists 51,000 fatalities due to combat. It
openly says that these were the result of direct enemy combat - this is normal for most of the world.
Those 42,500 are an underestimate for the USAAF deaths. The US Army had between 50-100,000 total deaths due to
plane crashes and only a tenth of those were actually shot down. This is normal for most countries - the Luftwaffe and RAF had similar issues.
Except they
generally don't include them as direct military deaths. Especially
those which occurred in the continental United States.
Once this is taken into account, America's role in Europe fades away almost
entirely. There were so few actual confrontations, despite the war being their largest, that it's
really a stretch to call them a combat force.
The few times they fought directly, the Americans
died in such huge numbers that they explicitly state that these confrontations were a "pointless mistake"
Many of these confrontations took place between German soldiers
in France. The implication, from historians, veterans, generals and politicians, almost unanimously, is that the losses incurred against
Americans should be incurred by
the Canadians.
Most countries have some differences in their outlook on war. Most countries don't
hide behind their neighbours, and openly state that it's better for the Canadians to die than for the Americans.
There is a pathological problem with "lying" among Americans. The fact that this information wasn't listed - I had to actually
find the primary sources to draw any comparisons which were
fair - should be enough to prove to any observers that
Americans usually lie about their military. They
lie more often than not.
Except the Marines, they actually
do tell the truth.
The
only Americans who don't
openly lie about their combat record are the United States Marine Corp.
There's not many of them, of course, but they're the only ones who have a battle record on-par with Canada.
If you are
not a US Marine, comparing yourselves to any other Armed Forces is essentially stolen valour.
The sum total of actual combat deaths for the entire US Military during both world wars, combined, is closer to 150,000 than it is to whatever absurd numbers they pluck from their arseholes. Including the civil war, it's
still absurdly low.
Of those deaths, 19,000 of them were the USMC, and almost entirely under MacArthur in the Pacific.
Now, why would MacArthur be honest?
Politically, this stems from the same issue Wilson had. Being "parasitic" and "vulture-like" isn't a good negotiation strategy unless you can bring force. Eisenhower saw this error and made sure that he had as many guns and soldiers in Europe as possible. For a country to have 3,000,000 soldiers and to fight a grand total of like,
three actual battles implies they were actively avoiding the Germans whenever possible.
This was to keep their own casualties as low as possible, at the
expense of their allies.
This isn't "self-preservation" or tactics. This is, literally, lying to your allies to get them killed, deliberately. Usually Canadians. At one point, the US Army actively held back to allow an entire mobile German force to escape their force of 400,000 - Operation Grenade - and let them go directly into the advance of a
small Canadian force. To save their own soldiers, America, despite massively outnumbering and outgunning the Germans,
chose to avoid the fight and "Race to Berlin" - abandoning the Canadians to die against a much larger force. Fortunately, Canadian soldiers were not the meek, cowardly "men" that the Americans assumed they were.
This isn't a "small deal" either, the US Army
actively avoided the Netherlands in its entirety.
America
fondly lists itself as one of the countries which participated in the Liberation of the Netherlands. As far as I can see, there wasn't a single ground battle involving any American forces in the Netherlands. They include the air raids as Army casualties.
This includes the Air Raids.
The RAF, who also made that mistake numerous times,
actively draws attention to it. Britain, Canada and the other allies seem to be alright with the Dutch about this.
We talked it out.
The USAAF quietly includes
American soldiers who killed hundreds of Dutch civilians and crashed upon returning to base as
combat deaths.
They also include this in their K/D ratios.
America lists this as a successful attack.
This includes Anne Frank. There is literally
pride among Americans for this. They
bombed Anne Frank and
celebrate it as a military victory.
The UK made similar mistakes. The UK
certainly did not respond to "please stop bombing the Netherlands, we need them on our side" with:
We have much bigger fish to fry - USAAF General Eaker
Oh - and whenever America refers to it, it's "Allied Bombings" - when they fuck up, it's an "Allied Problem" but if they win, it's an American victory. America had
very few deaths from air combat. 9/10 were regular crashes. This is because the USAAF refused to partake in raids until the RAF and Red Air Force had taken out most of the Luftwaffe and AA guns.
The few battles America fought vary - there's about
three which were "significant" but in each case, it was clear that the American strategy of "not fighting at all" was no match for the German strategy of "fighting" - and while they had other victories, upon digging, other "battles" were simply American soldiers bombing German holdouts until they surrendered - and many of the casualties from
this were from killing themselves in the process (Frankfurt, Nuremberg).
They generally seem to avoid publishing
any losses directly, and for such important events in American history,
it's really weird. For example - the highest ranking American killed in the war:
"Officially" he was executed while his hands were raised. In reality, the Germans accepted the surrender, and then he tried to
unholster his pistol. He was
shot to death because he tried to fake a surrender. General Rose, according to the investigation, tried to pull his weapon on the German officer after faking a surrender.
This guy has a fucking statue.
The man who,
according to the Americans themselves, tried to
fake a surrender and
failed, has a statue.
While my hatred for the United States has grown continuously through this, my respect for Canadians has grown a lot more. It's horrific to be
overtly abandoned to die by your supposed ally. It's even more admirable that the Canadians seem to have not
noticed - they went into a fight, and fought so hard that they didn't realise.
Americans seem to report this as a "Race to Berlin" without questioning what the other half of that meant. The
cost was that their allies were forced to fight alone while they rushed to Berlin, desperate for a seat at the big table.
American dominance is actually built off of that - the agreement which America was desperate to seek was currency control over European trade. When Americans say "Race to Berlin" - they were racing
against their own allies and deliberately tripping them up. Nobody else was thinking "We need to get there first" - Eisenhower threw as many other allies under the bus as possible to achieve that goal.
In summary, the entire role of America has been to inflate their own statistics, and list themselves into every campaign they can. The most retarded of which is that they
include themselves as a liberator of the Netherlands, by injecting the times they bombed Dutch civilians as combat missions.
They literally drive around and do salutes like:
And this propaganda is so effective that people seem
shocked that the Netherlands seems to like Canada in particular.
They're rewritten their history to such an extent that people are
surprised that the Netherlands hold the people who liberated them in high esteem. And this isn't uncommon - surprisingly few places in Europe actually mentioned much about individual American operations. It's like the
entire campaign by the USA is remembered exclusively by the USA.
The American story diverges from everyone else with the "Race to Berlin" and scarcely mentions the "tactically dodging all the enemies and trying to push them North or East" - at one point, the USA unceremoniously
dumped the work onto the USSR!
They had pushed so far and so wide across Germany that there's a gigantic
hole in the middle. If you see that big
hole roughly between Bremen and the fucking rest of Germany, that's where the Americans told everyone they would be.
Then they ran away from every battle and tried to grab as much land as possible, while going through
impressive lengths to actually avoid fighting.
They came up
behind the German lines, having ran away from the Netherlands and ended up directly behind the Germans who were fighting the Soviet Union.
They ran so far away from one front that they accidentally blundered into the other.