Washington – The U.S. military announced Friday the deaths of four Marines and one soldier, bringing the number of American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq since the war began 2 1/2 years ago to 1,993.
Three of the Marines were killed Thursday by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad, and the fourth died Wednesday in a car-bomb attack in Karbala.
The soldier died of wounds suffered during a mortar attack Thursday on a base in Hit, northwest of the Iraqi capital.
With deaths coming at an average of more than two a day, it appears likely that the number of dead will reach 2,000 in a matter of days.
There’s nothing inherently special about that number, but it provides a marker of sorts for the American effort to transform Iraq from dictatorship to democracy, and it’s a sobering reminder of the human cost of the U.S. presence in that country, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has suggested could last another 10 years.
The number of troops wounded in Iraq stands at 15,220, according to the Pentagon. Of those, 7,159 were so seriously hurt that they haven’t returned to duty.
Who are these Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice?
A typical Pentagon casualty report reads like the following: “Spec. Lucas A. Frantz, 22, of Tonganoxie, Kan., died in Mosul, Iraq, on Oct. 18, when he was hit by enemy fire while performing a combat mission. Frantz was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.”
According to statistics drawn from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a website that compiles data on U.S. and allied casualties from Pentagon news releases and news reports:
