What is the chance of getting shot in the army?

haygarr, don’t listen to zinty – s/he is inserting their political opinions, which you didn’t ask for. you have made your own, respectable decision, and if people disagree, should keep that opinion to themselves unless it’s asked for.

I just found a very interesting chapter from a book, called “Deployment injuries” which reinforces that your chances are actually quite slim. I’ll link you to the chapter, which can be read as a .pdf online. The chart below shows injuries of deployed and non-deployed army personnel during the Gulf war. It’s really interesting and shows that the only time the ratio of deployed injuries to non-deployed injuries is higher is in instances of explosions. (Click the photo twice to enlarge).

The Persian/Gulf War is from where most of the data in the Chapter came from, due to when it was written, so the statistics could be different in today’s wars. But still, an interesting read.

Also, you asked about being shot – according to the text, the instance / occurrences of this are much, much less than other injuries: “Among the deployed, motor vehicle accidents were the leading mechanism of death (62 deaths, 33.9% of deaths), followed by aircraft accidents (47 deaths, 25.7% of all deaths).

The chapter, published by the Borden Institute of the Army: http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/mpmVol1/PM1ch23.pdf