Military faces growing ranks of bereaved

Ursula Pirtle, left, talks with her daughter, Katie, in the play room at
a help center for families of fallen soldiers located at Fort Hood, Texas,
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007. Pirtle's husband, Heath, was killed serving with
the Army in Iraq. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

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Military faces growing ranks of bereaved

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
Sat Mar 3, 12:31 PM ET

FORT HOOD, Texas - One of the first sights greeting visitors to Fort Hood is a day-care center's playground, brightly colored evidence of the Army's commitment to be family friendly.

A few blocks away is a more poignant symbol: an office building recently converted into a first-of-its-kind support center for women and children whose husbands and fathers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. From Fort Hood alone, the toll has passed 365.

"It's our sanctuary," said Ursula Pirtle, whose daughter frequents a playroom at the center. Three-year-old Katie never met her father, Heath. He was killed in Iraq in 2003.

Over the past 15 years, America's armed forces have taken huge strides to retain married service members — improving schools, health programs and child care. But now, as never before in this family-embracing era, the military is struggling with the toughest home-front problem of all: Doing right by the often outspoken and ever-growing ranks of the bereaved.

Of the 3,350 Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan through early January, 1,586 of them — 47.3 percent — were married. Those fallen warriors left behind 1,954 children, according to the Pentagon's Manpower Data Center. More recent deaths have pushed that figure past 2,000.

Compared to the heavily draftee combat troops of the Vietnam war, today's volunteer fighting force is older, more reliant on National Guard and Reserve citizen-soldiers, and more likely to be married.

And more so than their Vietnam counterparts, the new generation of bereaved spouses has been vocal — on their bases, at congressional hearings — in pressing for more compassionate, effective support.

It's a constituency that politicians and generals do not want to alienate. The result has been numerous policy changes, ranging from improved benefits to better training for the officers who break the grim news of war-zone deaths. Even the Fort Hood support center materialized due to pressure from widows and their allies...

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