evidence: About 65,300 soldiers died in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. About 127,000 Americans died from drug overdoses involving a synthetic opioid other than methadone in 2020 and 2021, federal data shows. These deaths are primarily because of fentanyl. War deaths are often used as a way to illustrate the scale of a public health crisis. U.S. health officials typically track opioid deaths alongside deaths from other public health causes like heart disease or cancer.