Portraits of the casualties of war

The death rolls show military much changed since Vietnam - troops are older, more likely to have spouses, kids

BY DANIEL WAGNER | WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 26, 2005

WASHINGTON - Pfc. Hernando Rios had never expected to join the military. Then the 29-year-old Woodside resident lost his job as a supervisor of janitors because the cleaning solvents irritated his asthma. To support his three young daughters, he joined the New York National Guard last year and was promptly sent to Iraq.

"He used to be a joker and funny and fun," his sister Carmen Depompeis said, but after he enlisted, "he became very serious and very different."

"I guess he saw things over there, because he would call and say to pray for him," she said.

The last time they spoke, his unit was scheduled to return home in less than a month. Three days later, on Aug. 8, 2005, two roadside bombs - Improvised Explosive Devices, in military parlance - struck Rios' vehicle and killed him and another soldier instantly.

They were among 19 members of the "Fighting 69th" Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard killed during the tour.

As the American military reckons with the grim milestone of its 2,000th fatality in the Iraq war, a review of the death rolls reveals that Rios was part of a military much changed since the Vietnam era.

More Guard members have been used in combat roles in this conflict than in any since World War II. Indeed, Guard and Reserve troops make up almost a quarter of the fatalities in Iraq, compared to about 10 percent during the Vietnam War.

At 29, Rios was far closer in age to the average Iraq fatality, about 27, than to the average Vietnam fatality, about 23. And like most fatalities in Iraq since President George W. Bush declared major combat operations over in May 2003, Rios was killed by an improvised bomb.

"The Army is much more mature than it was" in Vietnam because it has more older soldiers, like Rios, who have amassed wisdom and problem-solving skills, said Robert Rush, a retired command sergeant major and military historian at the Army Center of Military History.

Younger soldiers' life experiences are limited to "being at home and being in the Army," he said, but older soldiers "have picked up a lot of the organizational ethos," so they have the strength to move on even as they grieve for fallen comrades.

Capt. George Rodriguez, a company commander from the 108th Infantry Regiment of the New York Guard, agreed.

After one of his soldiers, Pfc. Nathan Brown of Glens Falls, N.Y., was killed in an ambush, Rodriguez's priority was to remind his troops that "if you don't do your job, other people can get killed."

Because the company was unusually close and many of its members attended school together, it was especially important that they remain focused on their mission, he said.

Asked what he said to his troops after Brown's death, Rodriguez said he "told the platoon sergeants to reconsolidate the ammo and prepare to move out." Within two hours, they were on to another mission.

When older soldiers, especially Guardsmen, go to war, they leave spouses and children, houses and jobs behind. When they are killed, their absence can leave even larger holes than those of single men and women.

For Depompeis and her mother, Marlene, whom Rios had lived with, his death was the end of one period in their lives and the beginning of another. Rios' wife moved out of their home and they lost contact with the couple's children.

After Rios was killed, "nobody in the Army called to say 'Let me explain this to you.' Nothing," Depompeis said. And Marlene "was the one who brought this child into the world, so we feel very offended," she added.

Soldiers aged 20 to 24 are twice as likely to be married as their civilian counterparts, said Charlie Moskos, professor emeritus of military sociology at Northwestern University.

"The sadness is the same whether it's a 19-year-old or a 39-year-old dying," he said. A higher percentage of married men are being killed right now than there were in Vietnam, he said, but "if anything, the parents suffer the most in these kinds of wars. The loss of a family member, whether it's a teenage son or a middle-aged husband, is equally traumatic."

Rios' case bears this out. Depompeis said that since her brother's death, their mother's health has deteriorated. She cries every day and can't shake the memory of her only son.