From his outpost in the Kandahar province in Afghanistan, complained to his father about the shortage of cigarettes, bowling, Mountain Dew. But he took pride in their work and offered for patrols. On August 1, 2009, while in one of these missions, private Fitzgibbon they stepped on a metal plate connected to a bomb buried in the land of bricks. Blue sky turned Brown with dust.
The explosion instantly killed private Fitzgibbon, 19, of Knoxville, Tennessee, and the Jonathan Cape M. walls, a father of 27 years of Colorado Springs. An hour later, a third soldier who was helping to secure the area, Pfc. Richard k. Jones, 21, of Roxboro, North Carolina, killed another hidden bomb. The two explosions injured to at least 10 other soldiers.
On Tuesday, the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomber in Kabul killed to at least five members of the United States service. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in less than two. A resurgent Taliban active in almost all provinces, a weak central Government unable to protect his people and a greater number of American troops at risk all contributed to the acceleration of the rate of death.
The chaos of the last month of August, Afghans were the holding of national elections, provided an alarm clock for many Americans on the deterioration of the situation in the country. Forty-seven American GI died this month, more than double the previous August, the deadliest month in the deadliest year of the war.
In many ways, private Fitzgibbon characterized the new wave of deaths in combat. US troops die younger, often fresh from boot camp, the military records show. Between 2002 and 2008, the average age of service members killed in action in Afghanistan was 28; last year, it fell to 26. This year, more than 125 dead in combat troops were on average 25 years of age.
In the past two years, the number of soldiers killed by homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D., increased significantly. Earlier in the war, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades fire had the largest number of American lives. But in 2008, for the first time, more than half United States combat deaths were the result of I.E.D., which - as they did in Iraq, have become more powerful and more abundant in Afghanistan.
I.E.D. deaths have become more and more in lots: last August, for example, 17 of the 25 deaths caused by I.E.D. - including the private Fitzgibbon and body walls, involved in attacks that killed more than one soldier or marine killed. In future stories, Summer 2009 can present as a turning point in the war, a time that not only the American public started paying attention again to Afghanistan, but when the felt of Administration forced Obama to review and revise its approach throughout the war.
The warm months have been the first season fighting in Afghanistan, when the insurgents have emerged from the mountain huts to draw ambushes and recruit new fighters. But in the weeks before the presidential elections in August of last year, the Taliban scope was broader and more powerful than at any time that were driven from power.
Not only the number of I.E.D. attacks and attacks jump suicide, but own devices, became the most powerful, able to flip or tearing holes in heavily armored vehicles that once seemed impervious. A bomb estimated at ? 2,000 and killed seven us soldiers and their interpreter travelling in a troop transport last fall.
July, August, September and October were registration as the four deadliest months for us troops since the beginning of the war.
After receiving an alarming report about the war from his superior in the Afghanistan Commander, the President Obama last fall ordered 30,000 troops in the war, most of which will be in place this summer.
But to ask for more troops, Mr. Obama and other supporters of the new wave warned that casualties, Americans and Afghans, were almost certain to rise before security improved. The fierce fighting in Helmand province this year has proved them right, with 16 killed in February, compared with only 2 the previous month of February.
"If the Taliban has gained political control over the important parts of the country, all get better is if we introduce the military forces and contest of their control," said Steven Biddle, a defense policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, who was part of a group that considered the American strategy in the last summer. "And who is going to get people dead: its people, our people and civilians."
Good and bad days
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