Free Republic

USA Today, to its credit, carried a front page story, “Iraq combat deaths at 6-year low.” According to the article: U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have flattened at the lowest level since the war began six years ago Thursday, and the Navy has not lost a member to combat in more than a year. Three Marines have been killed in combat since August, and none since December, records show. The Air Force hasn’t had a combat death since April, and the Navy since February 2008. In some weeks, casualty figures for Iraq show, the number of non-combat deaths for U.S....

30 U.S. soldiers have been reported killed in March of 2006. This is the second lowest combat death rate since the Iraq war started in 2003. The lowest rate was 19 for February of 2004. There is one day left in this reporting period.

January 6, 2005 Copyright © 2005 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. WASHINGTON - Sgt. 1st Class Pedro Muñoz of Puerto Rico, a 47-year- old Green Beret killed in action in Afghanistan this week, was called "old man" by his troops, but it was said with respect bordering on awe. "Man, he was a stud. We called him 'old man,' but Pedro was harder than woodpecker lips," said Sgt. 1st Class Kevin McDaniel, who jumped with Muñoz into Yankee Stadium as members of the Army's famed Golden Knights parachute team. McDaniel, 34, of Lakeside, Ariz., recalled...

The older we get, the more we go to funerals for friends and family. As Benjamin Franklin observed, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” This isn’t about taxes, nor about the state funeral for former President Ronald Reagan. It’s about Laurie Russell, and about the value of death. Laurie was the wife of a lifelong friend of mine. She was smart and funny, able and wise. She was a positive influence in the lives of all who knew her. Or, I should say, IS a positive influence, because the benefits of who she was and what she did live...

TThe news media, which constantly accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat in Iraq, are constantly exaggerating the number of U.S. combat deaths there. I first pointed this out last August. For a while, the exaggeration stopped, but early in January it recommenced. The round number "500" was apparently irresistible. Yet as of January 15, exactly ten months after the war began on March 16, 2003, the official number of U.S. combat deaths listed by the Defense Department was 343. Another 155 had died from non-hostile causes, including 100 in accidents and others from illness. Since non-hostile causes are...

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. The reason for the designation is to memorialize those vets who died to assure the freedom that we all enjoy. If you can, place some flowers or a flag in a cemetery at the grave of a veteran. If you can't, a prayer would also be great. Most all free people in the U.S. have lost a friend or a relative in defense of freedom.