Chaplains preserve life stories of the fallen

By SHARON COHEN

AP National Writer

updated 12:31 a.m. ET March 24, 2008

The U.S. military death toll in Iraq reached 4,000 on Sunday with the announcement that four soldiers had been killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad. This story examines the milestone through military chaplains' eyes.

Chaplain Kevin Wainwright was preparing his Easter Sunday sermon in Iraq when there was a knock on his door.

The news was grim: 1st Lt. Phillip Neel was dead. The young officer and fellow West Point grad had been a regular at the chaplain's Sunday church services. Wainwright knew and admired him. Now he had to find the right words to honor him.

Wainwright chose the legend of Sir Galahad, King Arthur's noble knight, and the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson to salute Neel in a memorial.

He spoke of his compassion, his devotion to his soldiers. But in trying to understand Neel's death, the chaplain also posed an agonizing question: "Why does it seem that the good guys are the first ones to fall?"

On Easter night, the sad milestone of 4,000 American deaths in the Iraq war was reached with an announcement by the U.S. military that four U.S. soldiers had been killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

As the toll approached 4,000, Wainwright and hundreds of other military chaplains in Iraq and across America wrestled with hard questions constantly. These are the men and women who pray with the mortally wounded, who administer last rites on bomb-scarred roads, who sit at kitchen tables with grieving families back home.

Behind every statistic, a story
Army chaplains such as Wainwright have been especially busy: Almost three-fourths of those who have died in Iraq were in the Army. Of the total lost in all services, more than 30 were just 18 years old; about 80 were older than 45, according to the military. Nearly 100 were women. A quarter of those who died were from just three states: California, Texas and New York.

But for every number, there is a name, and for every name, a husband or son, wife or daughter whose life is remembered, often by a chaplain.

"I'm the guy who knows all their stories," Wainwright says. "Of all the people in the battalion, the chaplain is the one who should know a little about everybody."

In 14 months in Iraq, Wainwright comforted countless grieving soldiers, composed handwritten notes to families and conducted memorials, including one for Neel held last year at a concrete-barricaded chapel.

"I remember them all," he says.

Military chaplains don't carry weapons, don't engage in combat, and yet they know as well as any the human cost of war.

Here are four of their stories:

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When Kevin Wainwright arrived in Iraq in October 2006, it was his second deployment _ he had served with the North Carolina National Guard two years earlier. This time he shipped out from Fort Hood, Texas.

The Army captain knew what the dangers were, but he was optimistic.

"I think we all go over there believing ... we're going to be that battalion that doesn't lose anyone," Wainwright says.

That didn't happen.

‘You lose part of yourself’
Of the deaths in Iraq, more than 1 in 10 have come from sprawling Fort Hood, including some very personal losses for the chaplain: One was an airman he had given Communion to days before he was killed, one a soldier he had accompanied on patrol, another he had joined for dinner.

Wainwright was familiar with the rhythms of life and death as a Presbyterian minister serving churches in Wisconsin and the Carolinas. But war was different. "It's personal," he says. "They WANT to kill you."

And each soldier's death, Wainwright says, took a toll. "As a chaplain," he says, "you lose part of yourself that you're never going to get back."

As chaplain for the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, Wainwright, 38, sometimes joined soldiers on patrols. He also tended to the injured.

He was there to tell one wounded soldier after he regained consciousness that five of his comrades had died. Wainwright sat with him for hours, then gently told the survivor: "I'm glad you made it and you're here."

He also was there to clutch the wrist of another soldier dying from shrapnel wounds to the head. He prayed in a circle with his friends, then stepped aside so everyone could say goodbye.

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