If you wish to tie that back to sound American conservative thinking, be my guest...
I'll take your challenge. Since I've already made this point, I don't really expect you to read/understand it, but I'll say it again.
The author isn't saying it's good that American soldiers are dying. You are taking it out of context to say it that way. He's saying that it's good they are the targets and not the American citizenry. In this, he is right. We've changed the focus for our enemies from attacking our soft underbellies (and no matter how armed the citizenry, we are still the easier target because we aren't trained and organized for counterterrorism operations--we're busy living our lives) to attacking our military strength head on. The result has been lemming-like--they lose on a nearly 100-1 ratio. If they keep this up, we'll be rid of them eventually. If we allow them freedom to attack us at home, far more Americans will die and the terrorists will never stop attacking. In your scenario, we change our way of life from one of liberty to one of an armed camp. We already have an armed camp to defend us. Stopping the living of our daily lives stops our economy, our charity, our faith and gives the terrorists their victory.
I'll take our current approach over the alternative any day.