In Illinois Town, Still a Time to Mourn

Little Talk About Eight-Year Afghan War, but a Powerful Undercurrent of Pain

MARSEILLES, Ill. -- They are adding a panel to the black granite war memorial, the one etched with names of U.S. warriors killed in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The other 10 panels are filled, but the troops keep falling.

Three weeks ago, it was four soldiers, including two from the Marseilles National Guard armory, killed by a roadside bomb in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Last Monday, it was four more, also by a bomb, making July the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war in Afghanistan began nearly eight years ago.

As U.S. casualties rise in Afghanistan, shifting attention from six years of war in Iraq, a familiar sense of loss is rippling through towns like this one. The Illinois National Guard alone has lost 17 soldiers in the past nine months, and President Obama is sending more troops to battle a resurgent Taliban and to stabilize the fractured country.

The deaths are an unwelcome reminder of a war that often draws little notice beyond the home towns of the deployed and the fallen. And even here, where yellow ribbons line Main Street and soldiers in uniform drop in to Bobaluk's or Di's Deli for lunch, conversation about Afghanistan is limited.

Asked how much talk he hears, Mayor Jim Trager answered flatly, "Not much."

"It's going to be a big job, and I don't know how many people are aware of that," said Patricia Riley, a retired Marine and former commander of American Legion Post 235 in Marseilles. "I think people have gotten back to the complacency of their everyday lives."

A Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests that Americans approve of Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan by a 2 to 1 margin, with 62 percent supporting his approach and 30 percent disapproving. But respondents were closely divided on whether the United States and its NATO allies are making progress: Forty-six percent said yes; 42 percent said no.

The enemy's increased use of roadside bombs and a three-week-old NATO offensive in Helmand province are driving up the number of casualties and pushing the war back into the news, particularly as the U.S. military effort in Iraq recedes.

Last week's fatalities brought the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan to 31 in July and 738 since 2001. The previous high was 28 deaths in June 2008, when nine soldiers were killed in an attack on a military outpost. At least 56 members of the U.S.-led coalition have been killed this month, also a record.

At the Marseilles memorial, home to the names of more than 6,500 troops killed in the Middle East and Afghanistan since 1979, Bob Newkirk has followed the wars through their reverberations back home. Every day, he sees family members who come to honor and mourn the dead.

Back when the memorial along the Illinois River opened in 2004, there were five handsome granite panels. Now there are 10, and it is still not enough. Designers expect to add one more and, when it is full, expand again.

"I don't like digging the holes for more panels. When you start digging, you start thinking," said Newkirk, a retired diesel mechanic, describing the work he does with fellow volunteers, using shovels and elbow grease. "With Afghanistan starting up again, things don't look good."