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Counting nation's loss, one by one

The U.S. military death toll reaches a grim milestone - 2,000

BY JAMES RUPERT | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

October 26, 2005

U.S. troops killed during the war in Iraq are seen in this photo combo. Top row from left: Pfc. Christopher S. Adlesperger, Pfc. Lionel Ayro, Chief Petty Officer Joel E. Baldwin, Sgt. Michael L. Boatright, Staff Sgt. Kyle A. Eggers, Sgt. 1st Class Todd C. Gibbs, Lance Cpl. Eric Hillenburg, Staff Sgt. Henry E. Irizarry, Capt. William W. Jacobsen Jr., Staff Sgt. Robert S. Johnson, Cpl. In C. Kim, and Cpl. Zachary A. Kolda. (AP Photo / October 25, 2005)

BAGHDAD - An Army sergeant from Killeen, Texas, has become the 2,000th American soldier reported killed in the Iraq war.

Staff Sgt. George Alexander Jr. died in a San Antonio hospital Saturday, the Pentagon announced yesterday. He was wounded by a roadside bomb that blew up his Bradley Fighting Vehicle on Oct. 17 in Samarra, a central Iraq town set on plains that look much like those in his home state.

According to records maintained by several news organizations, his death raised the toll of U.S. citizens killed in military service here to 2,000. More than 15,000 have been wounded.

As is usual with Pentagon announcements of casualties, little detail was at first available on Alexander, his life or his death. But counting of deaths in this war tells some grim, terse stories.

The first 1,000 American service people killed in Iraq were lost over 539 days, from March 20, 2003, until Sept. 8 of last year. Since then the pace of death has quickened, taking another 1,000 lives in 402 days.

This casualty count, so closely followed in American press coverage and political debate, fails to show the full measure of U.S. losses. It does not include foreign immigrants in the military who are not U.S. citizens. According to a recent report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, at least 80 have died in Iraq.

And the Pentagon count excludes Americans - often recently discharged soldiers - who come to Iraq to work for U.S. security or construction firms, often doing jobs that in past wars would have been taken up by men or women in uniform. At least 103 such American contractors have been killed.

While detailed records are kept of American troops killed, there is no such accounting for Iraqis. Iraq's new government estimates that almost 3,500 Iraqi police and soldiers have died in the war. For civilian deaths, in most cities and towns, the best half-guess available is a stack of dusty, dog-eared ledgers kept in the morgue of the local hospital.

The best effort made on behalf of this country of 26 million people comes from a voluntary organization of Americans and Europeans called Iraq Body Count. They monitor the world's press to collate journalists' reports of Iraqis' deaths and post them at www.iraqbodycount.org.

After 31 months, the group says, news organizations have reported between about 26,700 and 30,000 Iraqi civilians killed violently. It is unknown how much of the real total that may represent. "It is likely that many, if not most, civilian casualties will go unreported by the media," Iraq Body Count notes on its Web site. "That is the sad nature of war."