NewsBusters: Unlike the 2,000-Death Count in Iraq, ABC, NBC, PBS, MSNBC Skip 2,000 Marker in Afghanistan
On June 13, the CBS Evening News devoted a story by David Martin to the Afghanistan death count reaching 2,000, as Martin interviewed a mother of a fallen Marine. CBS was alone. There was no story last week on the Afghanistan death “milestone” on ABC, NBC, the PBS NewsHour – or even on the MSNBC programs found in Nexis, including Rachel “Our Military’s In a Perilous Drift” Maddow.
But the networks were all more aggressive when the 2,000 mark arrived in Iraq on October 25, 2005. The Big Three networks devoted 14 morning and evening news stories to the death toll from October 24 through the end of October, and another 24 anchor briefs or mentions. They used the number to spell “disaster for this White House.”
2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark
By JAMES DAOPublished: October 26, 2005
Correction Appended
Sgt. Anthony G. Jones, fresh off the plane from Iraq and an impish grin on his face, sauntered unannounced into his wife's hospital room in Georgia just hours after she had given birth to their second son.
Jim Wilson/The New York TimesJeffrey A. Williams, 20, was killed by a bomb. His mother, Sandra Williams-Smith, at home in Mansfield, Tex., says that she supported her son's ambition, but that she never supported the war. Her feelings are shared by many other African-Americans, according to polls and military experts.
A Look at Those Who Died in Iraq
Since the war in Iraq began in March of 2003, over 2000 soldiers have died. The dead represent the highest toll since the Vietnam War.
Jim Wilson/The New York TimesJeffrey B. Starr died in a firefight. His father, Brian Starr, pictured, said his son believed in the war, but was tired of the harsh life. So he enrolled in community college, planning to attend after his enlistment ended in August. He was killed in April on his third tour in Iraq.
For two joyous weeks in May, Sergeant Jones cooed over their baby and showered attention on his wife. But he also took care of unfinished business, selling his pickup truck to retire a loan, paying off bills, calling on family and friends.
"I want to live this week like it is my last," he told his wife.
Three weeks later, on June 14, Sergeant Jones was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on his third tour in a war that is not yet three years old. He was 25.
"It was like he knew he wouldn't come back," said his grandmother, Ima Lee Jones, who buried Sergeant Jones beside towering oaks near her home in Sumter, S.C. "He told me, 'Grandma, the chances of going over a third time and coming back alive are almost nil. I've known too many who have died.' "
Sergeant Jones's tale may be unusual in its heartbreaking juxtaposition of birth and death, but it has become increasingly common among the war dead in one important way: one in five of the troops who have been killed were in their second, third, fourth or fifth tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.....
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