The troops lost are sons and daughters from city streets and rural hamlets. They are teens who went from senior proms to boot camp and battle, and middle-aged men who put aside retirement for the dangers of a war zone.

What they share is they will not see home again.

What does the number mean? On D-Day alone, more Americans lost their lives. At the peak of Vietnam, hundreds of U.S. troops were dying each week. And in just one September morning three years ago, 2,792 people perished when two towers crumbled to the streets of New York.

Still, 1,000 is a grim milestone.

The conflict in Iraq has claimed almost three times the number of Americans lost in the entire Persian Gulf War. And this time, the vast majority of U.S. deaths — all but 138 — came after major combat operations were declared over. "Mission Accomplished," read a banner on the aircraft carrier where President Bush spoke on May 1, 2003.

Back home, there is another growing count: Towns that lost future firefighters and policemen, churches left without Sunday school teachers, families where infants will never meet their dads.

"It's almost like losing a community," says Luis Pizzini, an educator in San Diego, Texas. Two of his former students died in Iraq.

Ruben Valdez, 21, and Jose Amancio Perez, 22, grew up on the same block.

Now, the two young men lie buried a few feet apart.

Teens and veterans

The fallen are an American mosaic.

The youngest was just 18. The oldest, 59. More than half had not seen their 30th birthday, according to an Associated Press analysis of Department of Defense statistics for those who died since the war started on March 19, 2003.

Of those who have died, 97 percent were men; about two dozen were women. While more than 600 were white, others were black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian.

There were kids who had never fired a shot at an enemy, and veterans of Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo — even Vietnam.

They represented U.S. territories, and more than three dozen were born in foreign countries.

Army Pfc. Diego Rincon, a native of Colombia, was among them. After he was killed in a suicide bombing, his father, Jorge, lobbied Congress, which passed legislation giving posthumous citizenship to his 19-year-old son and other foreign-born soldiers killed in battle.

Jose Gutierrez grew up an orphan in Guatemala, crossed the border illegally, obtained a visa, graduated from high school, and eventually became a Marine. At 28, the lance corporal was buried in his native land, an American flag covering his casket.

In a poem called "Letter to God," Gutierrez once wrote: "Thank you for what I have ... for my dreams that don't die."

(The Iraq war also has claimed the lives of more than 120 foreign troops who were part of the U.S.-led coalition. Some 135 Americans have died in anti-terror operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries.)

About 70 percent were killed in action, and there were more than 160 accidental deaths.

Different lives

Yet numbers are only part of the story.

Those who died were as different as they were the same: There were homecoming kings and class presidents, Scout leaders and Little League coaches. A young man from the projects who put a hip-hop beat to "Amazing Grace" on the bus to church camp. A lawyer fascinated with tanks. An Army specialist nicknamed "Ketchup" who would sneak food to Iraqi children.

There was Trevor Spink, a 36-year-old staff sergeant in his third tour in Iraq. His steady, confident gaze was once the face on Marine recruitment posters. Now, his mother said, that portrait will adorn his tombstone.

There was Army pilot Aaron Weaver, 32, who had survived cancer and a rocket attack in the 1993 battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, recounted in "Black Hawk Down." The Bronze Star recipient and father of a baby girl was so determined to go to Iraq, he secured special medical clearance so he could fly.

"Nobody wants to leave their buddies behind," says his father, Mike Weaver. "Being an Army Ranger — it's a close-knit family."

So many were so very young, men and women just beginning lives filled with promise.

Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, 21, proposed to fiancée Tiffany Frank by telephone from Iraq. They set a wedding date.

"We had the church reserved, the pastor reserved, the reception hall reserved," Tiffany says. "Now I can only dream about what we would have had."

Roger Rowe already had everything he wanted: A 34-year marriage to his childhood friend, four children and seven grandchildren. Still, at 54, the Vietnam veteran had no hesitation about serving in Iraq as part of the Tennessee National Guard.

"He said, 'What a lifetime experience this will be to be able to help that country,' " remembers his widow, Shirley. "He was always an optimist."

Others saw the military as a steppingstone: to save money for college, buy a first home, broaden horizons, build a career.

James Adamouski, a 29-year-old Army captain, had served in Bosnia and Kosovo. He was a West Point graduate and former semiprofessional soccer player in Germany. He also was about to start Harvard Business School and had his eye on politics.

During a Memorial Day visit to the White House last year, his father, Frank Adamouski, spoke briefly with President Bush about what might have been. "I always knew I was going to have breakfast in the White House," he recalls saying. "But I always thought my son was going to be president when I did."

Army Pfc. Jesse Buryj had plans to become a Canton, Ohio, police officer. He enlisted because he was too young to join the force.

The 21-year-old newlywed died a hero, credited with saving fellow soldiers when he fired more than 400 rounds at a truck attempting to crash a checkpoint.

"I know he went out in a blaze of glory," says his mother, Peggy. "They say he showed no fear and gave no ground."

Others expressed bitterness over the loss of loved ones in a war they considered unjustified.

"It just rubbed salt in the wound to hear them talk about, well maybe they didn't have all the information, maybe the intelligence was faulty," says Oliva Smith, whose 41-year-old husband, Bruce, was killed when a missile downed his helicopter.

There is another void almost too great to fathom: More than 500 sons and daughters are left without a father; at least five children lost their mothers.