Rural soldiers more likely to die in Iraq, Afghanistan

AP ^ | Sunday, December 17, 2006

[MinorityRepublican]

WICHITA, Kan. - Christopher Wasser was like a lot of soldiers from rural areas.

The Ottawa native saw the military as a way to pay for college, said his mother, Candy Wasser.

Wasser joined the Marine Corps in 2001 and was among the first to invade Iraq two years later.

On a second deployment there in April 2004, he gained another common characteristic for rural soldiers. He was killed, dying from shrapnel wounds in Anbar Province.

According to a study released last month by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, the death rate per million population aged 18 to 54 was 60 percent higher for soldiers from rural areas compared with those from urban areas or the suburbs.

In Kansas, 29 of the 42 soldiers who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan hailed from rural communities.

Researchers said the higher death rate is linked to higher enlistment because of smaller job opportunities in rural areas. That means combat deaths are felt more keenly in rural parts of the country.

"For a lot of small towns and rural communities, the war's not abstract," said Dee Davis, president of the Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies. "In rural America, people know who's actually fighting."

Davis said his group did a survey before the election that showed three-fourths of rural respondents said they knew someone fighting overseas.

In Ottawa, a town of about 12,000 in northeast Kansas, Wasser's death was more than just a newspaper headline with flags being lowered to half-staff for 10 days.

His mother said a fast-food restaurant placed a tribute to him on its billboard and store owners placed signs in their windows. The funeral home planted a tree in his honor in the city park.

One of Wasser's closest friends, Stephanie Smith, also was in the military, enlisting in the Air Force the summer before her senior year. She's now a 911 dispatcher for Franklin County and said she'd still recommend the military.

"You get a lot more experiences joining the military than you would staying here," Smith said.

Small towns also foster a strong sense of patriotism and duty, which can influence a young person's decision to enlist, said high school counselors and teachers.

"I think small towns support a lot of traditional American values that might motivate young men to sign up for the military," said Walt Cochran, a social studies teacher at Gardner-Edgerton High School.

One of Cochran's former students, Army Pfc. Shane Austin of Edgerton, a northeast Kansas town with a population of 1,450, was killed in Iraq last month.

Duty drove Patricia Langley and her son, Jack Mayfield, to join the Kansas National Guard last week.

"We all have an obligation," said Langley of Grainfield - population 320. "If we're going to complain about things, we need to be part of things. We all should at some point do something for our country."

John Heidrick, an Air Force veteran and teacher in the eastern Kansas town of Pleasanton, said he saw a lot of changes when one of his students, Joseph Lister, joined the Army. He said he noticed the angry kid develop into a mature adult.

On Nov. 30, 2003, Army Spc. Lister was killed at age 22 in Ramadi, Iraq , Heidrick said.

A brigadier general spoke at his funeral and presented his family with his Lister's Purple Heart.

"He went from being a poor, troubled kid to having a one-star general say all those nice things about him in front of family and friends," Heidrick said. "Even though the war has kind of soured and gone south, kids here are still patriotic."

In fact, they're continuing to enlist.

Uniontown High School in southeast Kansas saw three out of its senior class of 24 enlist last year and five of 35 seniors said they wanted to see recruiters. The school lost two graduates within six weeks in fighting.

"I think sometimes with rural kids, maybe they see that as their opportunity to travel, which they don't think they could get otherwise," said Patty Smilie, a counselor at the school. "In some cases they see it as their only way out of this area of Kansas."

Among them is Heath Clayton, a 17-year-old senior who decided in October to join the Marines. He said he sees the Corps as good experience for an eventual career in law enforcement.

He knows several fellow students also interested in enlisting and knows two graduates who died in 2004. He'll leave for training in San Diego next summer, the same place Wasser reported five years ago.

Asked if he worries about being killed, he said it was.

"But I really don't think it'd happen to me," Clayton said. "It's just a very few people out of everybody.

"And if I gotta die for my country, I will."

[Minus_The_Bear]

ie the people from the reddest sections of the country

[dighton]

Full reading not needed to grasp its idiocy.

[Billthedrill]

The AP couldn't make it any more obvious, could they? Despite the actual statistics to the contrary they're going to try to portray this in Kerry's and Rangel's twisted terms, as an army where even though you volunteer, you're being oppressed. I don't think you could dishonor the troops more than that. Here's what they're really about -

"And if I gotta die for my country, I will."

Somebody gets it. And it isn't AP.

[cardinal4]

Full reading not needed to grasp its idiocy.

No, just the first couple of sentences..

[armymarinemom]

Leftist goons more likely to become journalist.

[quantim]

[Sir Gawain]

the death rate per million population aged 18 to 54 was 60 percent higher for soldiers from rural areas compared with those from urban areas or the suburbs.

Does this assume an equal number of enlistments from each area type? I wouldn't think that would hold true. Maybe more rural soldiers are dying because there are more rural soldiers in the military.

[fat city]

AP using New Hampshire data to tell a story about Kansas soldiers. Journalism 2006.

[Thunder90]

Here is the liberal's interpretation: "Rednecks die more in Iraq because they are right winged God fearing gun toting nationalist warmongering conservatives....blah blah blah.."

My interperatation-Rural area people are more likely to take infantry and other high-risk positions within the military than their suburban or urban counterparts.

[ClaireSolt]

There is a lot more money and sophistication in those Kansas towns that an AP reporter would be able to discern.

[Rembrandt_fan]

You wrote, "My interperatation-Rural area people are more likely to take infantry and other high-risk positions within the military than their suburban or urban counterparts."

I agree wholeheartedly. Another thing, too: most of the guys I served with were like me, from a rural area, with a strong family tradition of service in combat arms. Every male member of my family has served since we came over on the boat, since the Civil War. Of course, none of the skills I learned in the airborne infantry translate to the civilian world, but I didn't join for the paycheck or the benefits--back then, twenty-some years ago, there wasn't much of either, anyway.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Anybody ever heard of a "GRIT"???

[Michael81Dus]

From the article, just two sentences after your quoted:

Researchers said the higher death rate is linked to higher enlistment because of smaller job opportunities in rural areas. That means combat deaths are felt more keenly in rural parts of the country.

[Aussieteen]

So, conservatives from rural areas tend to sign up more for these sorts of things. And they're generally braver, so they're more often in the line of fire.

Damn, but the media chooses to report on the stupidest of things. Why not do a report on how more women give birth than men, next?

*walks off, muttering about the media*

[madison10]

So is the AP saying only "hicks" are willing to die for their nation? Are they saying there are more troops from rural portions of the country who are too naive to say "no" to the recruiter?

Are they saying the best and the brightest from all of America's classes and races from flyover country are willing to fight, but the geniuses on the left and right coasts are too sophisicated, Liberal, brainwashed to deal with reality?

C'mon, AP, spit it out.

[KeyLargo]

More Rangle and Kerry crap.

This is evidence though that service to our country is very important to those living in the heartland.