I Would like the current body count of USA Blacks killed in the
current Iraq war, AND, just their first names. I realize this may be a
sensitive subject. I want to compair the amount of "Bible names" like
Matthew,John,Paul & Ruth,Ester,Mary etc. and see if Civil War ratios
still exist. Please be sensitive with the answer and let your first
paragraph sum up just your results.

(Example:) Currently research lists ??? black soldiers killed in Iraq
and approx. ??% had a first name mentioned in the Bible. (End of
example) Thankyou McIsencraft

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Clarification of Question by mcisencraft-ga on 15 May 2004 12:41 PDT

With the great comments posted by others (below) I have over half the
answer. I just got some free European software
(www.onlinebible.org)that will do the names for me. All I need now is
the first name of Black soldiers no longer with us because of Iraq.

It seems odd that the government has no problem identifying ratios for
every Black factor from, assistance programs to the exact decimal
point of college student race norming funding.  However when just pure
scientific research is being done on what just happens to be a
political "hot potato"...all of the sudden some people."don't know
what a Black is"

At this point

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Clarification of Question by mcisencraft-ga on 15 May 2004 12:43 PDT

I WILL PAY THE $9.50 JUST FOR A CURRENT LIST OF BLACKS KILLED IN
ACTION IN IRAQ. I WILL DO THE REST MYSELF. THANKYOU. M.

For Researchers and McIsencraft,

This might be tough because there might not be a list by race for Iraq.

Full list of all names (as of May 8, 2004) is here:

http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/oif_list_of_names.pdf

You can also have a look at 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/casualties/facesofthefallen.htm
Where you will find name & photos for most those soldiers.
Just reading one page is a little bit saddening
you will have to decide on your own what is "black" ?
things may not be as simple as in the civil war!

The figures of Blacks buried in Arlington cemetery are shamefully used
by both Republicans and Democrats to make political hay. As an example
below is a snippit from a Govt. report listing an exact location:

    "the time of Park's funeral in 1929, Daniel "Chappie" James 
    (Section 2, Lot  4968-B, Grid V-33) was a 9-year-old boy working odd
    jobs to earn money for flying lessons. 

    Within the 140 years that spanned the lifetimes of these two men, 
    thousands of blacks were interred at Arlington National Cemetery --
      silent headstones echoing the impressive progression of roles
blacks h     played in America's growth

However when someone like you tries to find out exact figures all
govt. sources seem to get a type of "honky tonk amnesia" and won't
"let the truth come out"
The below link to the Arlington cemetary has lots of info on Blacks,
civil war stats and possibly something to help you.  Please post the
results of your project. PS Dont hold your breath for a Google worker
to take this question.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/text/black_history_text.html

Dear Harp, 

Google Answers Researchers (I assume that what you meant) are not
Google employees or workers, but independent contractors.

There could be several rasons why a certain question may go unanswered: 

- It could be, that for the current fee of $9.5 (from which
Researchers get 75%) researchers find it too time and resource
consuming to look for an answer;

- It could be that Researchers are buffeled, like AcidTest, from the
definition of "Black" when there are'nt any "official" list by race.
Should we look at people's faces and determine if they are black or
not? Should we go over this unfortunately very long list and and
search for each name, if any news source mentions him or her as
African American?

- It could be that it is just impossible to answer the question with
the tools we have today.

- And since there are 500 Researchers, it could be just that the right
Researcher, who has access to the answer, has not seen this question
yet.

Actually, there are summaries of military casualties, including one
that has information on race/ethnicity.  It is not specific by name
and it "only" covers 1980 through early 2003.  It, and others, can be
found here on the US Department of Defense "Directorate for Information
Operations and Reports" web site.
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/castop.htm

"Military Casualty Information ... Race/Ethnicity Summary"

Questions can be asked of them through email at: Comments@dior.whs.mil
They can be contacted by phone as well at: 703-604-4575

There is no political "hot potato" that I can see.  It might be that
it is just not a priority of the military to identify the race of the
individuals that have died in Iraq.  Considering everything that has
and is happening there, that is actually reasonable.

Right now the Drudge Report online has a link called " The List" about
half way down their website.  It goes to a military outlet that has
ALL the names, info and a photo for almost every soldier slain in Iraq
to date.

The photos are of a good enough quality that you can spot any
"recgonizable miniority" However you will be in for a long long
project. They only load about 20 at one time. I hope you post your
findings as to if Civil War ratios have tapered off or gotten worse on
you Bible findings. harp.

Here is the list that harp890-ga mentions.
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html

Not all of the entries have pictures.

I have almost 40 hours of time on this question and even with the
great comments I was given I just have to give up. It would take about
"$500 Google Dollars$" to even get close to the answer I have found. 
Several have asked what I found out so far. I will post it here but it
could almost be called junk science because I am going on such a small
sliver of information. Also the addition of Black or "Project Names"
like Jammall, Tyrone, Falishaa etc. have skewed results from the Civil
war.  I could not get all Arlington cemetary info so here is the best
I have.

"Project" or Black named soldiers........................about 400%
from baseline chance of getting killed in Iraq.

"Regular" Named Blacks (Tony, Bill, Alice etc).......  0% Baseline death toll

"Bible Named Blacks"  (Jeremiah, Amos,Esther,etc)..Almost a 200% better chance 
                                                   to NOT GET KILLED in Iraq.

But, my dear mcisencraft, what is the percentage of each "name
division" you did within the general African American population in
Iraq?

It could be obvious that certain "name types" have "better chance" of
getting killed, because there is much higher frequency of these names
among the enlisted; and even that does not imply any conclusions on
the link between names and death-toll (what a horribly morbid
subject!) - the link could be totally indirect:
1. More people of a certain social sub-group join the military than
from other sub-groups;
2. In the same sub-group, there are several more popular names than others.

This research far from being "morbid" is a genuine peek at combat
ratios the Black community has endured from the Civil war until now.

Instead of clouding things up with "name divisions" and frequency
theories etc. I am endeavoring not to use frequency/ to find out how
bad Blacks are getting shot up in Iraq and comparing that ratio to
what happened during the Civil War.  As you can see from the last 7
comments some have been quite helpful. The Drudge link gave a
?baseline? of all Blacks who currently have been killed in Iraq. 
Normal names were used as a baseline not frequency or enlistment
ratios as one commenter suggested.

For a shoestring study to get at the truth this is about as close as
it gets without government help.  As an example if the Governor of
Louisiana called the Whitehouse during an election year and wanted
immediate info on how many Louisiana Blacks were killed in Iraq he
would have an answer in 1 day. It would be a very accurate list.

The current ratio (Listed above 2) is as close as I know how to make
the comparison. Even a casual review of the names shows Bible names
are listed way less than the ?street? or ?project? names as they are
sometimes called. Make of it what you will. One note. I was surprised
that the software mentioned above mentioned ?Rufus? as being in the
Bible. Upon checking this is true....Twice.