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Local dead include a mix of races, backgrounds and home towns.

Seventy area members of the military have lost their lives while serving in the war in Iraq, three of whom were women. They hailed from small towns on the East End, from suburban developments in Nassau, from cramped apartments in Corona, Queens, and three-story walkups in the Bronx.

BY MELANIE LEFKOWITZ, GRAHAM RAYMAN AND TOM MCGINTY | Newsday Staff Writers

December 27, 2006

Lance Sage was a whiz with computers, but his skills never translated to a career. He was physically imposing, but he didn't like sports. He earned decent grades, but he didn't apply to college.

At the age of 23, after several years of trying to find his way in life, Sage joined the Army and wound up in an infantry unit on his way to Iraq.

"He figured it was a way to upgrade himself," said his mother, Alice Jones. "He enjoyed it. He loved to talk about what he was doing."

Three years after enlisting, on Dec. 27, 2005, Sage was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. Now, a year after his death, his mother still keeps a memorial urn containing his ashes on a shelf in her West Hempstead home.

"I have three years to place him at Calverton [National Cemetery], and you know what? I kind of like having him around," said Jones, 68. "Sometimes, I hear myself saying, 'stop that,' because that's what I would say to him when he was young. Sometimes I forget that he's not here."

Sage is just one of the 70 Long Island and New York city members of the military -- three of them women -- who have lost their lives while serving in the war in Iraq. They hailed from small towns on the East End, from suburban developments in Nassau, from cramped apartments in Corona, Queens, and three-story walkups in the Bronx.

Some were looking for better lives, for futures with promise, while others left behind established mid-career jobs. Some were moved to enlist by the horror of Sept. 11; others, by the lure of a subsidized college education. Some wanted a military career, others just hoped to give something back to their country.

And this can be said of all of them: They wanted to serve.

In many ways, Sage was like the others from Long Island and New York City who have died in the Iraq theater of operations. (An additional seven have died in operations tied to Afghanistan).

Along with another 45 of those lost in Iraq, Sage enlisted in the Army. He was 26, exactly in the middle of the age range of slain service members from the region. The national median is 24. And he was black, like 26 percent of the area's dead soldiers.

Local demographics

According to a Newsday analysis of U.S. Defense Department data, 59 percent of area fatalities were black or Hispanic, although they account for only 21 percent of the war's national death toll. Nationally, 74 percent of those who gave their lives were white. Locally, whites account for only 33 percent of those killed. A higher percentage of blacks and Hispanics from New York City and Long Island were killed in Iraq than their representation in the area, where black and Hispanics in the age range of 18-64 account for just 22 percent of New York City and Long Island's population.

Thirty-three percent of our dead soldiers were Hispanic -- nearly three times higher than the national figure of 12 percent. Though sociologists and demographers cautioned that these numbers are too small to consider statistically significant, the data paints a portrait of the local war dead.

Asked about the disparity, Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington), a member of the House Armed Services committee, said, "It's a reflection of demography, and I think it's also exacerbated by the 9/11 attacks. It's because many of them acted on patriotic impulses to defend our country."

David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organizations at the University of Maryland, said that because blacks and Latinos tend to join the Army and Marines over the other branches, they often serve on the ground in Iraq. "Because of what they're doing, they're the ones that are doing the patrolling ... and they're in the vehicles that are being hit by IEDs, and IEDs are the major cause of fatalities as well as tragic amputations," he said.

Causes of death

Like Sage, 24 other local service members were killed by roadside bombs -- the No. 1 cause of death to Americans in Iraq. For both regional military members and U.S. forces as a whole, the so-called "improvised explosive devices" have caused 36 percent of the deaths. The second-biggest cause of death is hostile gunfire, which claimed the lives of 18 local soldiers. Eight others, or 11 percent, died in non-hostile vehicle accidents, the third most common cause of local deaths in Iraq. The cause-of-death data was compiled by icasualties.org, a privately-operated Web site that closely tracks injuries and deaths in the war.

The oldest soldier nationally to die was 59-year old William David Chaney, of Schaumburg, Ill. Chaney, an Army National Guardsman, was a Vietnam War veteran. He suffered a heart attack after surgery for an intestinal infection.

The oldest of our soldiers to die was 47-year old Julian Melo of Brooklyn who was killed Dec. 21, 2004. The Panama-born Melo fled the regime of Manuel Noriega and joined the U.S. Army. He was among 14 GIs who died in a suicide bombing in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Melo had more in common with the area's dead: he was foreign born, as were 17 others. Wai Phyo Lwin, 27, a national guardsman from Queens, was born in Burma. He was killed in Baghdad in 2005 by a roadside bomb.

The youngest local soldier to die was 19-year-old Luis Moreno of Morris Heights. Moreno was an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who dreamed of becoming a police officer. He was fatally shot in the Iraqi city of Tikrit in January 2004. Moreno was one of about 75 dead members of the military since 2001 who have received posthumous citizenship.

"He was such a nice son to my mother and my father," said his sister, Michelle Moreno, in 2004. "I will miss playing cards with him, playing dominos, hanging out at the club and listening to music."

Service members lost in war were also parents

Thirty-four of our 70 lost soldiers were married. In total, they were parents of 57 children.

Among them is 2-year-old Liana Ruiz, the daughter of Jose Ruiz of Brentwood, who was killed in a driveby shooting in 2005. Liana met her father once, as an infant. She lives with her mother, Alexa, who acts as both parents, while working full time at a Bronx hospital.

"She recognizes him in the pictures as Daddy," Alexa Ruiz said of their daughter. "I was expecting Jose to come home, so I felt bewildered at first. It took a long time to accept the reality of it."

Military enlistment -- and sacrifice -- span all racial, ethnic, educational, income and demographic boundaries.

Francis Obaji, 21, of Queens Village, the son of Nigerian immigrants, was studying microbiology at the College of Staten Island when, inspired by patriotism after Sept. 11, he enlisted. He was killed after his vehicle rolled into a ditch in January 2005.

"This was our first son, our hope, our expectation," said Obaji's father, Cyril Obaji. "He went into the Army happy, hoping that he would come back. But he never came back."

Obaji kept his enlistment hidden from his parents. On many nights, he told his parents that he was studying late at school, when in fact, he was drilling with the Guard.

"He kept it from us because he felt that if he let us know about it, we would make him withdraw," Cyril said. "When I learned, I did not give my approval. I could allow anything else, but not the military. But he insisted. That was what he wanted."

Joseph Behnke of Park Slope, who died in December 2004, was white and 45 years old, owner of a construction business with four grown children, one of whom was an Army reservist himself.

Behnke actually re-enlisted in the Army National Guard when his son returned from the combat theater. Behnke died when his Humvee hit a barricade in a convoy south of Baghdad.

Reflecting the growing role of women in the military, three female soldiers are among the local dead. Linda Jimenez, 39, of Bensonhurst died in an accidental fall. Ramona Valdez, 20, of the Bronx was killed by a car bomb. And Denise Lanneman, 46, of Bayside died in an unspecified non-combat incident. In the entire Vietnam War, just eight women -- all of them nurses -- died.

Even though New York remains the nation's third-most populous state, its share of war dead has actually declined. In World War II, 10 percent of the dead were from New York -- the highest of any state. In Vietnam, the figure declined to 7 percent, and it is now 5 percent in the Iraq conflict.

Meanwhile, California and Texas have seen their share of the war dead increase. California's share has grown from 6 percent in World War II to 10 percent in Vietnam and 11 percent in the Iraq war, the most of any state. Texas' share has grown from 5 percent to 9 percent. The change mirrors the overall population growth of California and Texas over the past 60 years.

Peruvian immigrants' son signed up after 9/11

When all is said and done, a recruit enlists for his or her own reasons, regardless of national trends.

Wilfredo Urbina, 29, of Baldwin, was killed when a bomb exploded near his Humvee in Baghdad two years ago. He was the son of Peruvian immigrants who grew up in the Bronx, said his sister, Jeanin.

He spent four years in the Air Force, and later worked for a telecommunications company in New York City and volunteered for the Baldwin Fire Department. After losing friends on 9/11 and spending three days searching for survivors at Ground Zero, he signed up for the National Guard.

"I remember him saying, 'They are going to ship the kids off to war right out of high school,'" said Jeanin, 19. "'I have the experience so I should be there, too.'"