Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Is it a little odd, to put it mildly, that CNN is so interested how many female service members have died in Iraq? Apparently this month "ties a record" since 2005...at four, the latest of a "nonbattle-related cause. The idea of counting this and headlining an article is itself bizarre, and the tone of this thing... Maybe with all the recent positive coverage of the surge, some people are grasping for negatives. Female troop deaths in Iraq on pace to top record
Eighty-two service women have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
In 1994 the U.S. military began allowing women to serve in posts other than front-line infantry, special operations and artillery units.
The highest monthly death toll -- four troops and a Defense Department civilian -- came in June 2005.
The Thursday death of Spc. Kamisha J. Block, 20, of Vidor, Texas, from a "nonbattle-related cause" was the fifth time that four female service members have been killed in a month, the Pentagon reported. It also happened in October 2003, November 2003, September 2006 and January 2007...
...Sixteen female service members have died in Iraq this year, which puts 2007 on track to top the previous record of 20, set in 2005...
