I spent Veterans Day aka Armistice Day at the Auckland Museum and War Memorial. Next time we consider our casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, consider this:

In 1914, New Zealand had a total population of just over 1 million people. From this, they sent 100,444 troops and nurses to World War I between 1914 and 1918.
Over 40% of men of military age served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force fighting at Gallipoli or the Western Front.
16,697 Kiwis died and 41,317 were wounded in battle and 507 were killed in training by war's end.
Approximately another 1000 died within 5 years due to injuries sustained from the war.

That's almost a 60% casualty rate or roughly 1/4 of all men of military age from a very small country.

Every casualty is a tragedy but that kind of proportion is just staggering.