A week later, with the death of Specialist James A. Justice of
the Army in a military hospital in Germany, the United States
military reached 2,000 dead in the nearly 11-year-old conflict,
based on an analysis by The New York Times of Department of
Defense records. The calculation by The Times includes deaths
not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan and other nations
where American forces are directly involved in aiding the war.
Nearly nine years passed before American forces reached their
first 1,000 dead in the war. The second 1,000 came just 27
months later, a testament to the intensity of fighting prompted
by President Obama’s decision to send 33,000 additional troops
to Afghanistan in 2010, a policy known as the surge. In more
ways than his family might have imagined, Lance Corporal
Buckley, who had just turned 21 when he died, typified the
troops in that second wave of 1,000. According to the Times
analysis, three out of four were white, nine out of 10 were
enlisted service members, and one out of t