Reserve, Guard forces take more older soldiers to Iraq

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Reserve, Guard forces take more older soldiers to Iraq
By LISA HOFFMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
June 10, 2004

- One of the first casualties this month in Iraq was New Jersey National Guardsman Frank Carvill, who was 51 when he died in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad.

The oven-strength heat of Iraq apparently felled Louisiana National Guardsman Floyd Knighten, who collapsed last August as he traveled in a convoy. He was 54.

Illinois National Guardsman William Chaney succumbed May 18 to complications following surgery for an internal infection 10 days after he took ill in Iraq. He was 59.

In Iraq - contrary to the famous contention of World War II Gen. Douglas MacArthur - old soldiers do die.

Since the start of the war, 10 U.S. troops aged 50 or older have died on duty in Iraq and environs. Add in deaths of those 40 and older and the toll climbs to 61.

They represent a tiny fraction of the 827 American war fatalities overall. By far, it is the young who are doing most of the dying. For instance, those 21 and younger account for about 1 in 3 combat deaths. In contrast, just 7 percent of the dead are 40 or older.

But senior soldiers were significantly more likely to die of medical causes than the rest of the U.S. force. Sixty percent of the soldiers over 50 who died did so due to either heart attacks, brain aneurysms or other ailments. In contrast, just 4 percent of all the war dead have perished for medical reasons.

That surprised John Allen Williams, a military sociology expert at Loyola College of Chicago.

"It may be the older you are the more susceptible you are to stresses," Williams said.

The older casualties also have been disproportionately members of the National Guard or reserves, with 7 of the 10 being "part-time" soldiers. Of all war deaths, more than 82 percent have been active-duty troops.

The number of older casualties, and the percentage that are auxiliary forces, are both likely to increase now that citizen-soldiers are being deployed in greater numbers to the region. After a mass rotation of forces in and out of Iraq, National Guard and Reserve troops are on track to comprise nearly 40 percent of the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Such citizen-soldiers tend to be older than their active-duty counterparts. It is not unusual, for instance, for the average age of a National Guard unit to be 40. In the reserves, the average age of all officers is 41, while the average for enlisted troops is about 31, according to the Reserve Officers Association.

No count exists of the number of older soldiers in Iraq. But in the entire 2.6 million-person military, just 1 percent are in their 50s, Pentagon statistics show.

Many of those are commissioned officers, who often are in their 50s and above. For instance, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers is 62 and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Rick Sanchez, is 53.

In the reserves, the retirement age is generally 55, but some choose to stay on longer. One of those is an over-60 reserve physician who has done at least one tour in Iraq, according to Army Reserves spokesmen. Another is Sgt. 1st Class Clarence Kugler, of Fort Lauderdale, who, at 59, is a triathlon competitor and a civil affairs specialist in Baghdad.

Whatever their age, all troops are required to pass a strict physical examination to ensure they are fit for duty.

Williams and Lou Leto, spokesman for the Reserve Officers Association, said that whatever older troops lack in physical prowess, they more than make up for with their accumulated experience and savvy. Younger troops often seek out their older counterparts for guidance on everything from military matters to affairs of the heart, other experts said.

"I would bet my life their experience has saved lives," Leto said of soldiers in Iraq.

Of the senior troops who have died in Iraq, all but two were Army sergeants. The others were an Army chief warrant officer and an Air Force master sergeant.

The first to die, Army Sgt. 1st Class John Marshall, 50, of Los Angeles, was killed in an enemy ambush in April 2003. Two others - Army Sgts. Roger D. Rowe, 54, of Bon Aqua, Tenn., and Carvill, of Carlstadt, N.J., - were killed in convoy attacks last July and June 4, respectively.

Army 1st Sgt. Christopher Coffin, 51, of Kennebunk, Maine, died last July when his vehicle plunged into a ditch.

Four soldiers besides Knighten, of Olla, La., and Chaney, of Schaumburg, Ill., suffered apparent fatal heart attacks or strokes.

Army Master Sgt. Thomas Thigpen, 52, of Augusta, Ga., died in March during a tag football game at Camp Virginia in Kuwait. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Edward Barnhill, 50, of Shreveport, La., collapsed in a hallway of the Coalition Provisional Authority headquarters in Baghdad in May.

The Army reported that Army Chief Warrant Officer Clarence Boone, 50, of Fort Worth, Texas, died of a heart attack in Kuwait City last December. Air Force Master Sgt. and Vietnam veteran David Scott, 51, of Union, Ohio, died last July in Doha, Qatar, of a brain aneurysm.