The New York Times has developed an interactive graphic that allows you to access information about the 2,000 (and growing) military personnel that have died in Iraq. The interface is clean and powerful, allowing you search by date, last name, home state, or age of death. From the drop-down menu for age, it is clear that most deaths occur between the ages of 20-22 years — so many that an extra level of alphabetized sorting is necessary. This age demographic corresponds to my own enlistment from 1990-1993 at age 18 and experience of the Middle East under the first George Bush.

Visually, it looks like a high school year book. In many respects, it is.

Source
The New York Times. A Look at Those Who Died in Iraq

My last days as a teenager
Image. Graduating Basic Training (October 1990)
Image. Pre-deployment, Fort Ord, CA. (Feb 1991)
Image. Baking in the sun. Base Camp. (March 1991)
Image. Downtime. Sharm el-Sheik, Gulf of Aqaba (June 1991)