The history of the world is written in conflict--in wars, bloodshed, and disease.    We do not speak of great epochs of peace but of the events between those periods when men and women made sacrifice or otherwise perished.    Among the list of conflicts, those involving this country is short only because the recorded history of this country, this land, these people, only spans a period of a few centuries.    Below is a list of the recognized* conflicts and number of persons who died during them. The American Revolution (1775 to 1783) 6,188 Dead The War of 1812 (1812 to 1814) 4,505 Dead The Mexican War (1846 to 1848) 4,152 Dead The American Civil War (1861 to 1865) 498,332 Dead (both sides) Spanish-American War (1899 to 1902) 2,445 Dead World War I (1914 to 1918) 116,516 Dead World War II (1939 to 1945) 405,399 Dead Korea (1950 to 1953) 54,246 Dead VietNam (1961 to 1975) 58,167 Dead; 2,266 MIA+ The Persian Gulf War (January 16 to March 3, 1991) 293 Dead; 19 MIA+ These numbers cannot and never will tell the whole story of these conflicts, neither are they meant to do so.    There is no way to measure the impact on the lives of those who lost someone to these wars, and no way to measure the damage to those who survived though maimed.    What we can know is that these lives were lost and, where possible, their physical remains have been interred in cemetaries (or monuments have been errected for those missing) throughout this country.    This Memorial Day, please pause as you pass a cemetary and consider those who rest therein and measure what you have with some gratitude against what they will never know. * I apologize to both Native and Afro- American peoples for not presenting the dates and numbers of their dead on this page.    Surely, these people are a part of this country's history whether they died on these shores through the cruelty of western expansion and slavery, in capture in their native lands, or in the cargo holds of ships bringing them here, and their dead are no less worthy of remembrance on Memorial Day.    Also not mentioned were the Cuba Conflict (1962), the Grenda (1983), and Panama (1989). + Prior to the war in VietNam, no distinction was made between those listed as MIA (Missing In Action) and those listed as deceased, publically.    We do not know if any attempt was ever made to locate the remains of those missing if such a classified notation was made.    More recently, the Department of Defense has quietly begun to ask families still missing relatives from the Korean War Conflict to contact them so that an MIA list may be compiled.

	Thoughts on Memorial Day			Origins of Memorial Day
	The Order			Gettysburg Address
	Poetry, Verse and Other Writings			Related Links
	Memorial Day Page			Angel-Pie's Main Page

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