I happened upon the New York Times’ “Faces of the Dead” website this morning. It’s quite an amazing recognition of the young men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq. It got me thinking about which states are bearing the burden the most (the purpose here is benign — and certainly not to shun those who have not lost as many people!). Here’s one map (through December 1, 2006) that I came across:

I was interested in the state-by-state breakdown, and in particular relative to population. What I found is that Vermont, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Alaska have borne the heaviest burden relative to population, while New Jersey, Utah, Connecticut, Florida and Massachusetts and New York have borne the least burden relative to population. For example, New Jersey has lost one person for every 161,814 while Vermont has lost 1 person for every 33,824 — nearly 5 times the burden. The pattern is clear — except for Utah (which is probably low due to the high portion of mormons, who hold values of non-violence). With few exceptions, more rural states have borne the burden more so than urbanized states.

Here is the full list, compiled from HERE and correlated with population (2001 Census).

Through December 1, 2006

¹ Burden being the number of casualties per population.