War-weary US is numbed to drumbeat of troop deaths

[September 08, 2012]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was another week at war in Afghanistan, another string of American casualties, and another collective shrug by a nation weary of a faraway conflict whose hallmark is its grinding inconclusiveness.

After nearly 11 years, many by now have grown numb to the sting of losing soldiers like Shane W. Cantu, a private first class from Corunna, Mich. He died Aug. 28 of shrapnel wounds in eastern Afghanistan, not far from the getaway route that Osama bin Laden took when U.S. forces invaded after 9/11 and began America's longest war.

Cantu was 10 back then.

Nearly every day the Pentagon posts another death notice, brief and unadorned, revealing the barest of facts -- name, age and military unit -- but no words that might capture the meaning of the loss.

[Associated Press; By ROBERT BURNS]

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