In response to a number of people complaining that the DoD is hiding the true casualty numbers in a category called “Non-combat deaths”, I’ve dug up some numbers that pretty much make their blathering a non-issue. The original link used in the argument is here.
Then this came through the pipe:

nevermind i take it back. i just read the details column for the first
>40 or so on the page and i think its safe to say that about 5% of them
>died in actual combat with iraqis. jesus christ they’re not even
>fighting anyone and 500 are dead

And then a little bit later, I received this: “>Funny how how that seems to be the case. Makes me wonder
> if the Pentagon might not be cooking the data”
My response is below:
For JUST the US in the other wars, here are the figures:

Here’s where I got my figures.
Clearly, this war is unlike other wars, but is closest in resemblance, Casualty rate wise, to the first Gulf war.
In the article “Mortality Trends Among Active Duty Personnel, 1992-2001,” (MSMR Volume 09, Number 01, January 2003) statistics cite a peacetime mortality rate of 57.38 soldiers per 100,000 per year, all services. 53% of all active duty deaths were “attributable to accidents,” while 20% were suicides, and 18% disease deaths. None were combat-related; this is a peacetime survey. You can read it on page 6 of this PDF.
Given the peacetime stats, it’s not unreasonable to think that combat mortality rates for personnel in non-combat situations increase a level of magnitude.