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Katie Couric's Notebook: Our Town

Hi, everyone.

Thousands of miles from Iraq, the war has hit too close to home in small towns across America.

Nearly half of the more than 3,100 U.S. military fatalities have come from small towns. One in five hailed from hometowns of less than 5,000, according to the AP.

Many of the war dead came from towns that aren't just small, they're poor. More than half of those killed came from towns where the percentage of people living in poverty topped the national average.

Small towns have always made BIG sacrifices in war. The tiny Virginia hamlet of Bedford, population 3,200, had the highest casualty rate...23 dead...during D-Day.

The head of a think-tank studying rural issues says, "Every day there's another small town that has one of their own come home less than whole."

We should remember as the casualties mount that small town USA is, in the words of Thornton Wilder, "Our Town."

That's a page from my Notebook.

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