Grim Milestone

The number of US fatalities in the Afghanistan war is nearing 1,000, “a grim milestone”, more than eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power. “As of Tuesday, 996 U.S. military personnel had died while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. The roll call of the fallen began on Oct. 10, 2001, when Air Force Master Sgt. Evander E. Andrews was killed in a forklift accident in Qatar while building an airstrip in preparation for the invasion of Afghanistan. The latest confirmed addition came Sunday, when Army Pfc. J.R. Salvacion, 27, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit near Kandahar. The number of dead is small in comparison with U.S. casualties in Iraq, where 4,366 uniformed personnel have died since 2003. But as operations intensify in Afghanistan, the war is killing more and more service members who came home safely after serving in Iraq, only to return to the battlefield in another theater. Since Dec. 1, at least 30 percent of the American military personnel who have died in Afghanistan have been veterans of the Iraq war, according to a Washington Post analysis.”