Perspective: U.S. families mourn lost soldiers, question war

John Edward Wood

HUMBOLDT, Kan., Dec 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Army National Guard Spc. John Wood is everywhere inside the quiet clapboard house just off the main street in Humboldt, Kansas.

Pictures of him in uniform in Iraq or smiling at home with his kids cover walls and tabletops. Wood's medals share a corner cabinet with a white teddy bear that reads "Hurry Home," and a folded American flag in a glass case rests on a windowsill.

On a December day, Wood's wife, Lannette, rests on a sofa with a flag-embroidered afghan around her shoulders and waits for delivery of his death certificate. Because even though Wood is everywhere, he is nowhere.

A day before he would have turned 38, on Oct. 7, Woods, the father of four children ages 8 to 16, was killed by a roadside bomb. He was one of 106 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in October, one the deadliest months for American soldiers since the United States launched the Iraq war in March 2003.

"He was supposed to be home on Nov. 10," Lannette Wood, 34, said. "I could almost feel him home."

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