Death toll rises for Guard, Reserve units

By Robert Burns
The Associated Press

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For the National Guard and Reserve, whose part-time soldiers make up at least one-third of the 135,000 American troops in Iraq, the trend in casualties during May was especially troubling.

At least 22 citizen soldiers died in May, nearly one-third of all U.S. losses. As a percentage of the month's death toll, that is about double what it had been in most previous months. It also shows that the Guard and Reserve are bearing an increasing combat load.

Three states — Washington, Arkansas and North Carolina — have an Army National Guard combat brigade in Iraq.

In the next rotation of troops that will begin in late summer, there will be at least three others, and probably a fourth, plus a National Guard division headquarters.

The most persistent killer, more than one year after President Bush declared major combat over, is the homemade roadside bomb. The military calls it an improvised explosive device. They have killed at least 20 soldiers, seven of them National Guardsmen, this month.

The Marine Corps in March stopped reporting the circumstances of its casualties in Iraq, so the actual number of deaths caused by the homemade bombs in May is likely higher than the 20 reported by the Army.

"The laws of physics conspire to keep these things hidden once they're emplaced, so unless you figure out through other means where they got put down, you're in trouble," said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the center-left Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The Army sent a team of experts to Iraq to solve the problem months ago, apparently to little avail.

This kind of bomb took the life of the youngest female soldier to die in Iraq so far, Pfc. Leslie D. Jackson, 18, of Richmond, Va. She was killed in Baghdad on May 20 when her military vehicle was hit.

Others have been killed by snipers and suicide bombers, as well as mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. Accidents, including two electrocutions, also have taken a toll.
 
At least 69 U.S. troops have died in May, according to the Pentagon's published tally. The total does not include three deaths reported today or three Marines who died in action Saturday in western Iraq.

May was deadlier than most previous months, but only half as much as April, when the death toll was 136. That was by far the highest for any month since U.S. forces invaded in March 2003.

In total, the Iraq conflict has taken the lives of more than 800 American troops, and the Pentagon reported last week that the number wounded in action is approaching 4,700.

National Guardsmen often are older than their active-duty counterparts, and May's death toll reflects that.

Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, of the Illinois Army National Guard, became the oldest soldier to die since the Iraq invasion began. He was 59. Chaney died May 18 at a U.S. military hospital in Germany of complications from surgery for a noncombat-related condition.

A 50-year-old Army Reserve soldier from Shreveport, La., died May 14; a 44-year-old Reserve soldier from Owensboro, Ky., was killed by a suicide car bomber that same day.