It almost seems that a death of a soldier hits home in a worse way than a death of a worker. Death is a death is a death, but somehow we hear all the time about those prematurely taking out military personnel, but almost never of those striking men and women who make the stuff and provide services we use.
According to a federal government report, there were 5,071 industrial deaths in 2008 (down from 5,657 the year before).
According to a Congressional Research Service report, there were 1,441 military fatalities in 2008 (down from 1,953 the previous year).
Does this nation value more those who fight, albeit in the name of defending the nation, than those who make things for us to use, thus building the nation? What would you conclude, if anything?
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And 40,000 automobile fatalities every year. As a society we have accepted a certain level of risk. Some number of soldiers would have died had they been home, as you pointed out, in worker accidents or car fatalities. But we may mourn soldiers more because the rest die early, defending us. Similarly the guy who died rescuing children got more coverage because he died out of the normal course of life for the sake of others.
I can see what you are saying, Andy (thanks for your comment, by the way). Here's how I see it.
Let's take a tomato picker and a soldier. And let's suppose they both died on the job from job related action or condition. Two points.
If we assume they each chose their job freely, then they must have or should have known the risks involved.
Second, soldier's job is to defend us (this may be debatable, but I will accept it as a generalization). Tomato picker's job is to provide food for us as one in the chain of those who make it all work. In the absence of services provided by either of them, we would die - from starvation or from a "bullet."
We almost never hear (as we should) about tomato pickers dying on the job (from inhaled insecticides, for example) yet we do hear (as we should) about soldiers dying on the job.
To me that is a painful double standard I can not justify.
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