Facing Our Losses - Iraq 2009

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Operation Iraqi Freedom
Began March 20, 2003. In all, more than 4,310 troops have been killed, 278 of them with ties to Washington, 4 in 2009. (Updated Jun. 5, 2009)

(Information compiled from military and media.)

4,306th to die: May 30, 2009 – Army Spc. Samuel D. Stone, 20, of Port Orchard, died in Tallil, Iraq, of injuries suffered during a non-combat related vehicle roll-over. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment, Bremerton. He attended South Kitsap High and graduated from Wellpinit-Fort Semco High School in Yakima County in 2006. He trained in carpentry and worked in Seattle as an apprentice carpenter before shipping out to Iraq. His mother, Nancy Stone, said her son "liked carpentry, but he wanted to be an architect and that's why he joined the military, so he would be able to have the education paid for." The family said Stone was an avid reader, enjoyed playing Dungeons & Dragons, and fishing and hunting with his father, Stephen Stone. He named his dog Ayla after a character in the Jean Auel novel "The Clan of the Cave Bear." Said his mother, who named her son after the prophet Samuel: "I didn't expect to have to give him back [to God] this soon."

4,242nd to die: Feb. 15, 2009 – Army Staff Sgt. Sean D. Diamond, 41, a Fort Lewis solider from Dublin, Calif., died in As Salam, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to the 610th Engineer Support Company at Fort Lewis, and was married, with four children. Diamond joined the Army as an infantryman in September 1987 and later served in the Reserve. He returned to active duty after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and was a heavy equipment operator in Iraq. "When I saw him before he left last year I thought, ‘Aren't you a little old to be going there?'" said his mother, Sally Wiley Diamond of Dublin. "But he had a lot of young guys that had never been there. He didn't want to turn them loose over there." She added: "You won't see a picture his whole life he wasn't smiling."

4,232nd to die: Jan. 26, 2009 – Army Chief Warrant Officer Benjamin H. Todd, 29, of Colville, Wash., and three others, died from wounds suffered when two OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters crashed in Kirkuk, Iraq. They were assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. The cause of the accident did not appear to be the result of enemy action, the Army said, noting the crash was the largest single American military loss of life in one day since last September . Formerly an Army Ranger, Todd served two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. The helicopter pilot had a fancy for dirt bikes and four-wheelers. His family, in a statement, called him “a young man defined by his loyalty to God, family and country."

4,231st to die: Jan. 24, 2009 – Army Sgt. Kyle J. Harrington, 24, a Fort Lewis solider from Swansea, Mass., died in Basra, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-hostile accident in his unit motor pool. He was assigned to the 542nd Maintenance Company, 593rd Sustainment Brigade, at Fort Lewis. Harrington’s widow, Faith, said she was told that Harrington was fatally hit by a forklift . He and his wife had two children. Harrington’s sister Elizabeth said “I can’t be sad when I think of my brother. I can’t think of one sad moment [we] ever had with each other. Once he joined the Army, he just became a man. He went from my teenage brother to a man overnight.”