A look at lives lost as U.S. deaths in Iraq near 4,000

One in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays. One percent were named Smith.

As the nation approaches its 4,000th Iraq war fatality — on Thursday the toll stood at 3,983 servicemembers plus eight Defense Department civilians — a USA TODAY analysis shows who gave their lives, where they came from and how they fell:

• Ninety-eight percent were male (compared with 99.9% of those lost in Vietnam). Three-quarters were non-Hispanic white (compared with 86% in Vietnam). The most common age was 21 (20 in Vietnam).

• Nine percent were officers, including 24 lieutenant colonels and six colonels.

• More of the fallen were based at Fort Hood in Texas than at any other military installation.

• New York City, which has lost 62 residents, had more deaths than any other hometown.

• More than half of the nearly 4,000 (52%) were killed by bombs, 16% by enemy gunfire. Five percent died in aircraft crashes. Fifty-five people drowned, and 15 were electrocuted. Almost one in five died from what the military terms "non-hostile" causes.

• Since the war began in March 2003, the Pentagon has reported double-digit U.S. fatalities on 35 days. The bloodiest was Jan. 26, 2005, when a Marine helicopter crashed in a sandstorm, killing all 31 aboard, and six other servicemembers died in combat. The bloodiest month was November 2004, when 137 died; the least bloody was February 2004, when 21 were lost. On 460 days of the war, no servicemember died.

HONORING THE FALLEN: Names mean more than numbers

The nearly 4,000 deaths — not including 482 troops killed in Afghanistan and the wider war on terrorism — are small by the standards of modern warfare.

The total is less than two-thirds the U.S. fatalities during the World War II battle of Iwo Jima, which lasted about a month; less than U.S. losses on each of the first three days of the Battle of the Bulge; and less than a fourth of U.S. fatalities in Vietnam in 1968 alone.

Is the upcoming 4,000th death more notable than the 3,999th or 4,001st? "Four thousand is a good round number people can grab hold of," says Morten Ender, a U.S. Military Academy sociologist who studies the military. "It reminds us of what's going on with a war that, since the (military's troop) surge, seems to have lost its place in the public mind."

Whether anyone pays attention to the benchmark is something else. "People tend not to be numerologists," says John Mueller, an Ohio State expert on war and public opinion. "These milestones basically have little effect on public support for a war. It's not like the stock market; people are more affected by events in wars than numbers."