It was only until modern times when women started to get any kind of military roles that put them in some kind of combat or near-combat. While most wars from today back to early history were fought by a vast majority of male soldiers, in some wars (arguably) women had more deaths than men despite not being soldiers. The main reason for this is severe casualty rates for civilians who are often women, children, and the elderly. In the Vietnam War for example, an estimated two million civilians had died from some war-caused reason while (at its highest estimates) 1.9 million soldiers from both sides of the Cold War conflict in Southeast Asia had died.