Time
June 12, 2000

Notebook

Reports Of Their Deaths Were Greatly Exaggerated

By Mark Tompson, Washington

A half-century after the Korean War, the Pentagon has just
revised
the number of Americans killed in the conflict, from 54,246 to
36,940. It seems that the higher figure--endorsed by the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and engraved on the five-year-old
Korean War
Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington--cropped up
shortly after both sides declared a truce in 1953 and has been
repeated, erroneously, ever since.

The "primary culprit" for the error was an anonymous government
clerk, the Pentagon says. The bureaucrat mistakenly added all
nonbattlefield U.S. military deaths--20,617--that occurred
worldwide
during the three-year conflict to the more than 33,000 U.S.
battlefield dead in Korea. But only 3,275 of those
nonbattlefield
deaths--largely due to accidents or disease--occurred in Korea.
That
yields the new, revised U.S. death count for the war. In a rare
example of interservice cooperation, a Pentagon memo notes, "All
service historian offices have been advised...and are in
agreement
with the revision."

When it takes this long , it begins to smell. Then blame dome clerk. Let's get a life. This administration has been lying since it started.
It is a shame wew will never know the real truth.
Bill Parker
Semper Fi
Sgt USMC