He would have turned 61 next month and had been due to leave Iraq, where he was an adviser to Iraqi security forces, in August, the Defense Department said.

Of nearly 5,000 American troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, 38 have been 50 or older, according to an analysis of Pentagon data by The New York Times.

Fifteen of those 38 died of hostile fire, the rest of illnesses or other noncombat causes. But none of the 14 others were as old as Major Hutchison, who was assigned to the Second Battalion, 34th Armor, First Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan.

Major Hutchison, who had signed on again in 2007 at age 58, was among 700 retirees serving in the Army, mostly overseas, in a Retiree Recall program that has helped bolster a military struggling at times to find recruits. The program, which is to end in August, has allowed some able-bodied retirees to serve again, with the age cutoff for officers usually in the early 60s.

By his family’s account, Major Hutchison did not need much convincing.

Born in Cincinnati and reared largely in Southern California, he had been in and out of the military as an adult, serving in Vietnam in the late 1960s, re-enlisting in the mid-1970s and retiring in 1988.