The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) June 01, 2004
War deaths not limited to combat
Vehicle crashes, heat, suicide increase toll in Middle East
By Demorris Lee
Amanda Loftin Murray's husband always told her that it didn't matter whether he was at home in the small Eastern North Carolina town of Ayden or killed by the enemy in Iraq. If it was his time to go, it was his time to go.
Sgt. Rodney Alan Murray's time came May 9 in Iraq. But it wasn't at an enemy's hands. Murray, 28, was killed when his Humvee collided with another military vehicle near Baghdad.
"He's still a hero in my eyes," Amanda Murray said. "I could get mad at the person that caused the accident, but accidents happen, and it was meant for him to go."
About a quarter of the deaths during the war in Iraq have resulted from accidents or other noncombat causes. In Afghanistan, about 57 percent of the deaths are nonhostile. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 62 percent of the deaths were from nonhostile causes.
The Department of Defense defines a nonhostile death as one not directly attributed to hostile action, terrorist activity or friendly fire. They can be vehicle crashes, suicides or heat strokes. Such deaths are to be expected around combat, said Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, who was an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.
"You are at a much higher tempo, and the circumstances are not as controlled," Korb said during a recent interview from Washington. "The roads you are driving on may not be paved, you may be driving at night, there may be sandstorms. If you are at a training exercise and the weather gets bad, you just call them off. During war, there's no such thing."
Nonhostile deaths are common, even when the military isn't amid conflict. But during war, there is much more focus on how and why soldiers die.
"The number of deaths shouldn't be a surprise," said John Pike, executive director of Global Security.org, an organization that follows all things military. "You are going to have some fraction of your military population to die of disease or accident under any circumstances. But now, the probability of being killed in an auto accident or by a heart attack is multiplied because of the environment."
In earlier wars, disease was a major cause of death. In the gulf war, most deaths came from nonhostile causes because the actual combat was so brief, Pike said. In Vietnam, nearly a fifth of the 58,200 deaths were of nonhostile causes. Of the 405,399 deaths during World War II, more than a quarter were not caused by the enemy.
Today, more than 130,000 American soldiers are in Iraq, and more than 800 have been killed since March 3, 2003. Of those, 215 deaths were declared non-hostile. In North Carolina, of the 75 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 20 perished from nonhostile causes.
In February, Sgt. 1st Class Henry A. Bacon, 45, of Wagram in Scotland County was killed when he was hit by a wrecker called to help him fix a truck. Bacon was a mechanical maintenance supervisor with the 4th Infantry Division. Bacon had spent 22 years in the military and had recently turned in his retirement papers.
Sgt. Roderic Solomon, 32, born at Womack Army Hospital at Fort Bragg, was the first North Carolina native known to have died during the Iraq war. The infantryman was killed in late March 2003 when his Bradley fighting vehicle rolled off a cliff in Iraq. He was assigned to the 27th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Ga.
Sgt. Murray, reared near Zebulon, was an Army reservist with the 351st Military Police Company. About a month before his fatal accident, his Iraq tour had been extended. Murray was heading toward the Baghdad International Airport in a Humvee when he met a Bradley fighting vehicle speeding to a firefight, Amanda Murray said.
"The [other vehicle] ran off the road and fell in a ditch, overcorrected and went into Rodney's lane," she said. "A foot of the track hit the tire of his Humvee. They think he broke his neck because of the impact. He died instantly and probably didn't know what happened."
The military is concerned that a lack of basic road safety is claiming too many troops; in May alone, half of the U.S. military's 18 non-hostile deaths involved vehicles.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez issued a memorandum Feb. 20 about vehicle safety. In the memo, Sanchez reminded soldiers that the use of seat belts is mandatory and that everyone must wear a Kevlar helmet and fragmentation protective vest when in a Humvee.
"Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the loss of lives and equipment, and the numerous injuries, from both tactical and not-tactical, have contributed to a decrease in combat fighting capabilities," Sanchez wrote. "This trend is unacceptable. Leaders can and must utilize the tools at their disposal to reduce the number of motor vehicle accidents and injuries."
Capt. Matthew Handley, spokesman for the N.C. National Guard's 30th Heavy Separate Brigade, which is in Iraq, said during a phone interview that the unit has been very fortunate because there have been no accidental deaths or serious injuries.
Handley said the unit is paying special attention to vehicle safety, weapons safety and the heat.
"It's 110 to 115, so it's getting quite hot," Handley said. "We are emphasizing that with leaders."
Such stress can cause accidents.
"You are not sleeping as well, and the things that we take for granted began to weigh on the body," said Korb, of the Center for American Progress. "The longer you are away from home, the less sleep you're getting, the higher the chance of a mistake."
© Copyright 2004, The News and Observer
