With few options and a bleak future, many young men and women in America enlisted into the military as a way out. Others were patriots. Many have died -- more than a thousand small communities across the country from Vermont to Wyoming to Louisiana are finding their burden far heavier than those in more urban areas.

The Associated Press has reported that almost half of US fatalities in Iraq came from towns with less than 25,000, with one in five from towns with less than 5,000. The same report found almost three quarters of those killed came from towns with per capita income less than the national average, and more than half killed came from towns with citizens living in poverty was greater than the national average.

The Carsey Institute is out of the University of New Hampshire and studies trends and conditions in rural America. They have published a fact sheet on rural soldiers that includes information on those serving in Iraq:

RuralDead_fact_revised_1.pdf