The day the Defense Department announced the deaths of three Fort Lewis-based soldiers last week, electronic condolences appeared on a Web site for military families.

Newspapers and television stations from the soldiers' hometowns in Kansas, Arkansas and Ohio noted their passing. On Thursday, their comrades eulogized the fallen in a Fort Lewis memorial, one of three funerals for the men.

The outpouring, by no means unusual, underscores the fact that we remember the 1,834 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan more comprehensively than in any other conflict in American history, said Fort Lewis Chaplain Maj. David Shoffner.

The pace of casualties is slow and steady, leaving time to feel each loss.

While the nation needs to memorialize its war dead, Shoffner said, the current conflict also can seem heartbreakingly endless.

"It's an interesting dynamic. We have the opportunity to memorialize each one, and that's a good thing," he said. "But it seems like it's never ending, like the deaths are never going to stop."

In World War II, Korea and Vietnam, American forces often suffered hundreds of casualties in a single day. Each community grieved its fallen, but there were often too many to cover extensively in the press, and no Internet where people could share their loss with the world.

During the invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944, for example, the country lost more than 1,400 men, most before noon.

The Seattle Times ran a four-paragraph story on the first-announced local death from D-Day, Pfc. J. Allan Machan, from Snoqualmie. The article appeared on page 11.

In this war, information about the deceased is much more available and widespread, thanks to instant, global communication.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, 61 Fort Lewis-based soldiers have died in Iraq, five others perished in Afghanistan and two more in the Philippines.

Each soldier has three funerals: on the battlefield, at home and on base.

The Fort Lewis memorials have become so numerous and taxing, the chaplains there devised a rotation system.

On Thursday, it was Shoffner's turn to take the pulpit and eulogize the three soldiers — Sgt. Benjamin C. Morton, 1st Lt. Aaron N. Seesan and Spc. Tyler L. Creamean — killed in two separate incidents on May 22.

By the time Shoffner spoke, there were dozens of television news spots and articles about the fallen, in publications from The (Canton) Repository in Ohio to the Daily Leader in Pontiac, Ill.

On the Web site strykernews.com, anyone with Internet access could read comments by an officer during a memorial service for the three men in Mosul, and peruse postings by "idaho stryker mom," "MosulStrykerwife" and others who offered kind thoughts.

"Know that your entire Stryker Family holds you close to our hearts and prayers for your comfort and strength," reads one message. "We will never forget the sacrifice that you have made."

Similar messages will be posted for the next casualty.

"Because they have come in ones and twos spread over time, it seems like we are burying a person every week," Shoffner said. "That is a difficult thing."

While individual casualties were sometimes overlooked in past wars, soldiers today worry that their losses will one day seem routine.

During a memorial on May 3, Capt. Michael Traugutt spoke about Lt. William Edens, killed on April 28.

Traugutt listed the numbers of people who die each year from heart attacks, drunken-driving accidents and smoking.

"Those are numbers," he said. "Over the last four months, 945 Americans died for their country. Those are not numbers. Those are heroes."

And, for a while at least, they are also remembered as sons and daughters, jokesters and loners, car fanatics and piccolo players, country-music fans and Eagle Scouts.

And in this sorrow, Shoffner must find the right words.

During Thursday's service, he selected a particular Bible passage because, he told the assembled soldiers, "there have been way too many memorial services." The verse he sought to explore: "Jesus wept."

Alex Fryer: 206-464-8124 or afryer@seattletimes.com