How many days of combat did the average infatry soldier see in Iraq?
I don’t know about Iraq. In Vietnam the “average solider” saw little or no combat. Eighty-five percent of the Americans deployed to Vietnam were there in support of the grunts. About 10% of the troops deployed were actually grunts and about 5% in direct support (field artillery, helicopter and armor crews, combat engineers, etc.). Most of us–including me–sat out the war on a relatively secure base being subjected to occasional rocket or mortar attacks. Actual infantry may have spent 250 days in the field, but they were not engaged in combat every day. The big challenge for the infantry was not direct contact with the enemy, it was booby traps left behind as they scattered in front of the advancing Americans. IEDs (the booby trap of choice in Iraq) were probably more pervasive then actual contact (exchanging gunfire) with the enemy in Iraq too.
