Grief On The Home Front

It's becoming a daily sorrow: the death of American soldiers in Iraq.

The killing of Saddam's sons has not ended the killing of America's soldiers.

Two GIs were killed Wednesday, and Thursday, three more U.S. soldiers - members of the unit that killed Odai and Qusai Hussein - died when they came under attack from gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in northern Iraq.

CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports that since May 1, when President Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq were over, 100 U.S. soldiers have been killed - 40 of them by hostile fire.

Grief now lingers in places like Townsend, Massachusetts.

Sergeant Justin Garvey was so gung-ho Army, he flew to the Pentagon to enlist.

He was killed this past Sunday, when a sneak-attack hit his convoy in Northern Iraq.

"They just need to get everyone out of there because today it's us, you know," says Kristen Garvey, the soldier's sister. "Tomorrow it's going to be someone else's family that's suffering."

Suffering like First Sergeant Randy Rehn's family in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma or National Guard Sergeant Roger Rowe's family in Nashville. At 54, Rowe was the oldest U.S. soldier killed in Iraq.

Near Houston, the family of First Lieutenant Jonathan Dozier mourns.

"First Lieutenant Jonathan Dozier was and always will be our hero."

Dozier was guarding a Baghdad bank. Somewhere, nearby, was an Iraqi sniper.

He leaves a widow, and a 9-month-old son.

"He said every time they went out, people would shoot at them. And fire RPGs," says Jessica Dozier, the soldier's widow. "And they could never find where it was coming from."

Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq now average twelve a day.

And every news report of another casualty sends hearts racing in America's military families.

"I'm sitting in front of the TV, frozen. Waiting to hear," says Ingrid Stewart, a soldier's wife. "And I'm praying, 'Oh God. Please, please, please don't let it be my husband.'"

That prayer will go on, until they all come home.

The way these families see it, the war changed, but it never really ended.