Monday, June 14, 2004
Bush sending the older soilders to die
|
One of the first casualties this month in Iraq was New Jersey National Guardsman Frank Carvill, who was 51 when he died in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad.
The oven-strength heat of Iraq apparently felled Louisiana National Guardsman Floyd Knighten, who collapsed last August as he traveled in a convoy. He was 54.
Illinois National Guardsman William Chaney succumbed May 18 to complications following surgery for an internal infection 10 days after he took ill in Iraq. He was 59.
In Iraq - contrary to the famous contention of World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur - old soldiers do die.
Since the start of the war, 10 U.S. troops aged 50 or older have died on duty in Iraq and environs. Add in deaths of those 40 and older and the toll climbs to 61.
They represent a tiny fraction of the 827 American war fatalities overall. By far, it is the young who are doing most of the dying. For instance, those 21 and younger account for about 1 in 3 combat deaths. In contrast, just 7 percent of the dead are 40 or older.
But senior soldiers were significantly more likely to die of medical causes than the rest of the U.S. force. Sixty percent of the soldiers over 50 who died did so due to either heart attacks, brain aneurysms or other ailments. In contrast, just 4 percent of all the war dead have perished for medical reasons.
That surprised John Allen Williams, a military sociology expert at Loyola College of Chicago.
"It may be the older you are the more susceptible you are to stresses," Williams said.
The older casualties also have been disproportionately members of the National Guard or reserves, with 7 of the 10 being "part-time" soldiers. Of all war deaths, more than 82 percent have been active-duty troops.
The number of older casualties, and the percentage that are auxiliary forces, are both likely to increase now that citizen-soldiers are being deployed in greater numbers to the region. After a mass rotation of forces in and out of Iraq, National Guard and Reserve troops are on track to comprise nearly 40 percent of the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
|
