The war on Iraq claimed yet another life today, this time in a traffic accident in Balad, Iraq. CentCom reports:
One 13th Corps Support Command Soldier was killed and four injured as the result of a vehicle accident near Ramadi at approximately 1 a.m. July 7.
Yesterday, the Department of Defense released the name of a female soldier stationed in Afghanistan:
Spc. Julie R. Hickey, 20, of Galloway, Ohio, was evacuated from Bagram, Afghanistan, on June 30 and died in Landstuhl, Germany, on July 4 of complications from a non-combat related illness.
Such incidents rarely garner headlines in the mainstream media. These two deaths, however, bring the deaths totals in Iraq and Afghanistan to 872 and 129 respectively, and thus the total count to 1001. Once coupled with the official wounded count in Iraq of over 5000 or the unofficial count of 7,000-10,000, the human cost of these interventions demands we continue to ask those who supported or continue to support this war: at what cost?