One of our sad tasks is to track those of our military who have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan or those who have been killed in training exercises here at home. That number is hovering at 150.

With so many units from Hawai'i overseas, we take special interest in knowing when a servicemember has died. Our goal is to write a story of what happened and if possible, provide a complete obituary. We have on ongoing online tribute page of short stories and photos called "Salute to the Fallen." On Memorial Day, we ran the name, age, hometown and picture of everyone who had died as a result of the conflicts up to that time. It filled two full pages.

Sometimes there is a lag between the time someone has died and when we get the news and identification of the deceased. Department of Defense e-mail alerts give the name of the deceased, the date they died, the unit to which they were assigned and generally what happened.

The DoD site, www.defense link.mil, also includes news updates. On Monday, military writer William Cole spotted a press release reporting that two Task Force Lightning soldiers were killed and three others wounded on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol outside Hawija. Cole has done two tours of duty in Iraq for The Advertiser and visited Hawija during the first tour.

He knew instinctively that Schofield Barracks soldiers may have been involved because Task Force Lightning covers northern Iraq and has about 21,000 service members. One-third of those are from Hawai'i with the 25th Infantry Division. He surmised the dead soldiers were from the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment at Schofield, also known as "The Wolfhounds," but had no confirming information. Cole called Schofield Barracks and a spokesman reported that "we lost two this weekend." Identities of the dead soldiers were being withheld pending notification of family members.

Cole wrote the item Monday and it was posted on our Web site at 12:23 p.m.

The military spouse of a soldier serving with the 25th read the posting and took issue with it a half-hour later.

"I am very bothered that your paper would post such an article before primary and secondary family members are notified," she wrote. "Would it not be more appropriate to wait the respected 24-48 hours to simply post this article once family members are notified? Does posting this information before they are notified make your paper that much more 'newsworthy' ? I ask these questions only because if I had not heard from my husband this morning before reading this article, I would be in a panic thinking, 'Could one of these soldiers be my husband?' since your article states that family members have yet to be notified. What if the family members in question are like myself, at work right now and searching the local news online during their lunch break only to find your article and ask themselves the same heartbreaking question?"

I appreciate the concerns of the writer but she is unlikely to be satisfied with my answers.

First off, news travels faster than ever and though the military has been historically slow in releasing timely information, it is doing an excellent job of updating its many Web sites and sending e-mail alerts. The military realizes there is an intense interest in the conflicts overseas, and the public has a right to know the consequences of war.

The second reality is that the military will never release anything it has not cleared at its highest levels. It also realizes that news moves swiftly, and in the case of casualties, family members are being notified quickly, not always through official channels.

The Pentagon attempts to reach the next of kin within 24 hours. Policy requires that an additional 24 hours pass before the names are made public on the Pentagon's Web site.

Even if the deaths had occurred at 11:59 p.m. Iraq time on Saturday, that would have been 9:59 a.m. Saturday in Hawai'i. Our posting was 12:23 p.m. Monday, or 50 hours later. One of the soldiers was from Georgia and one from Washington, so it was even later in the day there. We cleared the 48-hour window of families being notified. The names were officially posted on the DoD Web site at 12:50 p.m. Tuesday.

But the official military news came even earlier. Both the Pentagon and Multi-National Corps-Iraq, the tactical unit responsible for command operations throughout Iraq, issued news releases Sunday on the deaths of Task Force Lightning soldiers. We looked at the site Monday and made confirmation with Schofield Monday. Had a spokesman not made the confirmation, we would not have written the story because we could not be sure the deceased were based here.

To be fair, Schofield spokesman Kendrick Washington told me he agrees with the military spouse. Schofield would prefer that nothing be released until primary family members (such as a spouse) and secondary family members (parents or siblings) are notified. His main concern is the same as ours: that family members not learn about a loved one being killed by reading the newspaper. That has never happened here, Washington said.

But Washington and other military spokespersons also follow a "maximum disclosure with minimum delay" policy that requires them to release information that can be released. In this case, it was that two Schofield soldiers had been killed.

I have no problem with posting the information when we had it. Our reporter did everything as he should: he spotted the news release on Monday, he immediately called Schofield, and Schofield confirmed the news. There was no discussion about holding the information because names had not been released. It would have been the same had we learned here locally that a Honolulu police officer had been killed in the line of duty. It is something we would have reported, even if a name had not been released.

We certainly do not intend to needlessly worry military (or law enforcement) families, but we do not set military policy, and we rely mostly on official channels to get our information. We tread even more carefully when we get word of military deaths outside of those channels.

Ultimately, though, I have to agree with the military spouse — on one thing. The information is more newsworthy the quicker it is released. It's the very reason she was perusing our Web site at noon looking for the latest updates. When we have done all we can do to confirm that news is accurate, we have done our jobs.