Mixed emotions surround increasing U.S. death toll

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Mixed emotions surround increasing U.S. death toll


Mixed emotions surround increasing U.S. death toll
By James Warden and Michael Gisick, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, March 25, 2008

BAGHDAD — Staff Sgt. Michael Elledge and Sgt. Christopher Simpson weren’t the 4,000th.

The C Company, 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment soldiers died while returning from Taji, Iraq, a week before the grim milestone. Their convoy had left their base in Baghdad to exchange an older Humvee for an updated model. They were driving that new and improved Humvee when an explosively formed projectile killed them.

But Elledge’s and Simpson’s deaths give the growing U.S. casualty list in Iraq a special resonance to the 1-68 soldiers.

“Every one of them is a husband, a son, a father, could be a mother or daughter,” said Capt. Leonard Siems, the 1-68 chaplain. “They are truly a great generation.”

For some, such as Spc. Stephen Anctil, a 23-year-old Cape Cod, Mass., native, their deaths and the new tally have given him a growing desire to get to know the other soldiers in his unit.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53571