According to the Military.com website, for the first time since 2011, in 2015 on-duty deaths exceeded deaths that occurred in combat. At first, this seemed like an anomaly, but through 2018, the trend continued. In 2017, four times as many military personnel died in training accidents than were killed in combat. According to the hard numbers, 21 servicemen died in combat while 80 died as a result of non-combat training-related accidents. The incidents involved both aviation, naval, and ground accidents. Aviation accidents seem to be killing more than most – 133 servicemen in five years. These numbers are affected as military personnel are pulled out of combat zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
CNN reports on a West Point cadet who was killed in a rollover accident during a training exercise.
A vehicle accident on Thursday claimed the life of 22-year-old cadet Christopher J. Morgan, who was from West Orange, New Jersey. The academy announced on Friday that Morgan was killed by injuries sustained in a military vehicle accident at a training area.
Morgan was a recruited athlete who was a star on the academy’s wrestling team, as well as a standout Law and Legal Studies major.
Also injured in Thursday’s rollover accident were nineteen other cadets and two soldiers. A spokesperson for West Point said that the cadets were in a light-medium tactical vehicle on their way to a land navigation course. They were headed to do a map reading exercise.
All of the cadets were from the Class of 2020, and the maneuvers were typical of those that take place at the academy over the course of cadet’s training.
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