Local soldiers' deaths raise statistical question

The three, fresh-faced soldiers were serving in combat zones and trying to survive on battlegrounds when they died.

The three local men were riding in Army vehicles on roads far from their families in Illinois when they were killed last week.

War statistics will list two as combat deaths and the other as noncombat.

Sgt. Jason Vazquez was 24 years old, from the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago and a proud member of the Illinois National Guard. Spec. Joshua Harris, 21, of Oak Park, who always wanted to be a soldier, served alongside Vazquez. Both were killed in Afghanistan when their vehicle rolled over a roadside bomb and detonated it.

Vazquez and Harris: combat deaths.

Pfc. Lenny Gulczynski was just 19, from Carol Stream, and a June 2007 graduate of Bartlett High School. Gulczynski died in Iraq when his Humvee crashed into an oncoming civilian vehicle, according to his parents. He was posted as a gunner in the turret at the time of the crash and was ejected and killed.

Gulczynski: noncombat death.

Sgt. Vazquez, a Cook County correctional officer who was just deployed to Afghanistan three weeks ago, and Spec. Harris were killed by the most common cause of battlefield wounds: roadside bombs.

Pfc. Gulczynski, who followed his father and grandfather by joining the Army, was killed by the most common noncombat casualty: road traffic accident.

It may surprise you to learn that a quarter of all U.S. deaths during the war in Iraq have resulted from accidents and other nonhostile occurrences. In Afghanistan more than half of the deaths are noncombat.

When American soldiers are flown out of Iraq for medical treatment, nine of every 10 were not hurt in battle. They were injured or wounded accidentally, many of them in traffic accidents.

But five times as many U.S. soldiers have been evacuated from the war zones with muscle or bone injuries than from roadside bombs.

The Department of Defense defines nonhostile deaths as those not directly attributed to combat, terrorist actions or friendly fire. They can be vehicle crashes, suicides or heat strokes. The danger from traffic accidents is true for civilian contractors and journalists as well. On the occasions when I have been dispatched to report from war zones in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bosnia, media security consultants repeatedly reminded me that RTAs (Road Traffic Accidents) are much more likely to take my life than gunfire or bombings.

Sixty-seven troopers were killed in vehicle accidents the first year of the war alone. Fourteen soldiers from Illinois have perished in traffic accidents since the Iraq war began, according to Pentagon records.

The first was Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Pokorny, 30, of Naperville. He died shortly after the war began while returning from a patrol mission. Pokorny's armored personnel carrier threw a track, tumbled down a 4-foot embankment and flipped over. He left a wife and three children.

Then there was Army Spc. Adriana Salem, 21, of Elk Grove Village. She died in early 2005 in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, Iraq, when her military vehicle rolled over. The 2001 Elk Grove High School graduate had been in Iraq for 20 days when she was killed.

At the end of last year, Illinois Army National Guard Spc. Ashley Sietsema, 20, of Melrose Park, died in a Kuwait traffic accident. The ambulance she was driving rolled and hit a light pole.

Pentagon officials regularly remind soldiers about vehicle safety. They send out memos about mandatory seat belt use and requirements that soldiers wear Kevlar helmets and shrapnel vests while riding in Humvees. In a 2004 memo, Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez wrote to soldiers serving in Iraq that "since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the loss of lives and equipment, and the numerous injuries, from both tactical and not-tactical, have contributed to a decrease in combat fighting capabilities.

"This trend is unacceptable," the now retired Sanchez wrote. "Leaders can and must utilize the tools at their disposal to reduce the number of motor vehicle accidents and injuries."

The military's attention to traffic safety in Iraq has begun to decrease vehicle casualties. Also, many roads have been improved, there are fewer distractions from snipers and rocket-propelled grenades, and soldiers are driving less.

Many U.S. units in Iraq are largely confined to fortified bases and combat outposts. They don't going out unless it's for a specific mission, which limits the potential for accidents ... unlike Vietnam or even the first Gulf War when random patrols were much more common.

None of this matters to the family and fiancee of Sgt. Jason Vazquez in Logan Square, nor to the family of Spec. Joshua Harris. Nor does it take away the pain in Carol Stream for Pfc. Lenny Gulczynski's friends, parents, 12-year-old brother and 15-year-old sister.

There should be no premium on dying in combat; no military sainthood for dying in a vehicle that rolls over a bomb as opposed to rolling over a cliff.

Sanchez, Harris and Gulczynski all died in the line of duty. They both died as heroes, doing something most of us wouldn't.

There should be a statistic for that.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by e-mail at chuckgoudie@gmail.com