Iraqi War Dead

More than 1800 of ours soldiers dead -- that's just killed in action.

Because, as the Iraqi vet reminds us, soldiers die other ways.

Two Hood soldiers commit suicide
Associated Press
FORT HOOD, Texas

Two young Fort Hood soldiers who served in the Iraq war have killed themselves in separate incidents in Killeen since the weekend, post officials said Wednesday.

Sgt. Robert Decouteaux, 24, of Rosedale, N.Y., died Saturday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had been airlifted from his home to a Temple hospital for emergency surgery, but he died while doctors tried to save his life.

And on Monday morning, Spc. Robert Hunt, 22, of Houston, was found dead in his apartment by Killeen police, who were alerted after members of his unit tried to contact him when he failed to report to work.

Carol Smith, a Killeen police spokeswoman, said Wednesday that Hunt's cause of death was listed as asphyxiation.
Decouteaux, a soldier for five years, was an M-1 tank mechanic assigned to the 4th Infantry Division.

Fort Hood spokesman Dan Hassett said Decouteaux served in Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004, and that he was scheduled to redeploy when the division returns to the war zone beginning this fall.

Hunt, a radio operator-maintainer, joined the Army as a teenager in 2001 and had been assigned to Fort Hood since August 2003.

He deployed to Iraq for a year-long tour in March 2004 as part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

(Sent to me by the Iraqi Vet)

And for what?


The war will be a major factor in the 2006 midterm congressional races and could be one in the 2008 presidential race, said Stephen Cimbala, a Pennsylvania State University political scientist who has studied the impact of wars on American politics.

“If you look at it from a Republican point of view, by the 2006 congressional elections, you’re going to want to have a timetable in place for withdrawal of U.S. forces and their replacement by Iraqis. And by the fall of 2008, you will want to have most U.S. forces out of there,” Cimbala said.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8831425/