Department of Defense reported the deaths of about 40 service members in the past six weeks. About three-fourths of the deaths came after May 1, the day President Bush formally declared the end of major combat operations.
Some Back Home Wonder, 'Why Are People Dying?'
By MONICA DAVEY
nytimes.com
Somewhere along the way, the military families had stopped bracing so hard for the possibility of terrible news. Baghdad was taken, the statues had toppled, and the war seemed to be winding down. So at home, the relatives of service members said they began to sleep more deeply and to eat again. Some turned off televisions that had run for weeks. A few dared to plan homecoming parties.
One day in late April, Mary Arnold opened an e-mail message and felt the first traces of relief settle in her. Her marine son, Andrew Todd Arnold, a chief warrant officer, was preparing to leave Iraq for Kuwait, the message said, where he would start cleaning up the 18 howitzers he had been responsible for. Surely this meant it was over.
"That morning, when I saw it in writing," Ms. Arnold said, "I thought, `O.K., God, thank you. He's made it.' "
Hours later, at 10:15 p.m., the doorbell rang at Ms. Arnold's home in Spring, Tex. She spotted two marines through the peephole, she said, and began to scream. Mr. Arnold, who signed up for service 11 years ago and who spent his downtime watching Nascar and fishing and listening to country music, died on a firing range with two other marines on April 22, when a rocket-propelled grenade launcher they were testing malfunctioned.
Even as Americans viewed the conflict with Iraq as mostly over and the nation's attention turned elsewhere, the Department of Defense reported the deaths of about 40 service members in the past six weeks. About three-fourths of the deaths came after May 1, the day President Bush formally declared the end of major combat operations. Deaths over the past six weeks were fewer than at the height of the struggle: three times as many Americans were killed in the month after the war began. But for families who had just begun to allow themselves to think their loved ones might be safe, the news was all the more jarring, the numbers impossible to consider.
"We won the war, so why are people dying?" asked Fran Stall, whose companion is the father of Sgt. Troy David Jenkins, who died on April 24. "I don't understand why this keeps happening. We have guys getting killed every day."
They have been killed in a string of sudden attacks — assaults that have grown far more common in the past week and have begun raising questions among some families about whether there are enough United States forces in Iraq to handle mounting resistance. Soldiers have been shot at as they stood guard at vehicle checkpoints. They have been ambushed as they traveled along roads in convoys.
Maj. Mathew E. Schram of the Army died on Memorial Day when his military convoy was fired on. In Wisconsin, Major Schram's sister, Susan Kuske, said that she had known he would still be facing "nitty-gritty stuff" in the tense period after Saddam Hussein lost power, but that she had put her fears "somewhere in the back" of her thoughts. "I guess you never know. It's heart-wrenching, but I expect we will lose more."
More of the service members have died in accidents than in attacks. A tank plunged from a riverbank. A gun went off as a soldier cleaned it. A Humvee hit a parked trailer. A helicopter crashed. A transport truck rolled over. A rocket-propelled grenade launcher, the one Mr. Arnold was near, malfunctioned.
In late May, the Defense Department announced plans to cut in half the rate of "mishaps" over the next two years. The plan was prompted by an increase in accidents from 2001 to 2002, not by events in Iraq, according to a statement issued by the department in response to questions. Still, the department said it was "concerned about the number of accidents in Iraq," adding, "We do not tolerate preventable accidents anywhere."
Killed on the firing range beside Mr. Arnold were Chief Warrant Officer Robert William Channell Jr., a career marine, and Lance Cpl. Alan Dinh Lam, who was starting out.
Three days before his death, Mr. Channell, 36, had called home for the first time since the war started. He was safe, he told his wife, Joyce. He hoped to be back to North Carolina around Independence Day. He had all sorts of plans for fun with their daughter, who is 5.
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