There were four Marines and an Army soldier killed in Iraq in one 24-hour period over the weekend.

George Bush, who does not like people who go to war, probably will say that they are not dead.

As of Aug. 20, we list 952 of our troops killed in fighting.

That is the Defense Department figure. When the figure goes over 1,000, that can be devastating in an election.

But the figure of 1,000, so easily remembered, already has been reached. That was on July 7, when a rocket-propelled grenade killed Pfc. Samuel Bowen of Cleveland. The people keeping track at the Army Times newspaper, which has given the best, and often the only, coverage of the war, made Bowen the 1,000th. The Army Times, with no election to effect, properly includes deaths in Afghanistan.

The names of the dead in Iraq over the weekend have not been released yet, except for Army Pfc. Kevin A. Cuming, 22, of White Plains. And so you sat yesterday with all these Department of Defense death notices for the last weeks covering the desk and you glanced at them, with the ages of the dead reaching up from the paper to grab your throat. Now and then you called one of their homes to get a small idea of what they were like when they lived, and what we have lost in a war that now pleases only the mentally unbalanced.

Printing as many names and as often as possible is a gloomy task. These are the deaths that the president and his people try to sneak past the country. The dead were brave men. The president is craven. He buries the war, and the news reporters, indolent and in fear of authority, follow like cattle going into pens. For so long, the public believed the news it was given. Saddam Hussein was going to blow us up with an atom bomb! The Muslims of Iraq love us!

Herewith are some of the names we went through yesterday. It is taken here as an obligation that we print the rest in following columns.

Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, 20. 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany. Killed on Aug. 1 at Samarra when improvised explosive device detonated near his guard post. Home, Lindenwold, N.J. Killed with him was Spc. Armando Hernandez, 22. Home, Hesparia, Calif.

"He lived every day like it was his last day," Spc. Anthony J. Dixon's sister, Mary, said yesterday. "If something came up, he did it right then. We have a 100-foot cell-phone tower in the back yard. Somebody dared them to climb it. Anthony didn't say a word. He and Jay, the two of them climbed right to the top. They came down and my brother said, 'There. I did that.'

"His best friend, Adam Froehlich, was killed in Iraq. In March. He was 21. He and my brother enlisted together. Anthony already was in Iraq. Someone in his troop told him everything about Adam.

"On Sunday afternoon, somewhere between 1:30 and 2 o'clock, on August 1st, there was somebody at the door and my mother opened it. There were two officers, a sergeant and a chaplain. My mother knew what they were here for. She started crying. The two officers couldn't say anything. My mother threw them out."

Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., 26, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Killed on Aug. 4 due to enemy action in Al Ambar Province, Iraq. Home, Weslaco, Texas.

Spc. Brandon T. Titus, 20, of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, Watertown, N.Y. Killed on Aug. 17 in Baghdad when an improvised device exploded near his checkpoint. Home, Boise, Idaho.

Pfc. Fernando B. Hannon, 19, of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Died Aug. 15 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Wildomar, Calif.

And Pfc. Geoffrey, Perez, 24, of same unit and died on same day, Aug. 15, of wounds in Anbar Province. Home, Los Angles, Calif.

Spc. Jacob D. Martir, 21, of 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed on Aug. 18 in Sadr City when his patrol came under enemy small arms fire. Home, Norwich, Conn.

First Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello, 24, of 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. Died on Aug. 13 in Khalidiyah when improvised explosive device detonated near his mounted reconnaissance patrol vehicle. Home, Verrona, Pa.

"He lived for oatmeal cookies," his sister, Amy, said yesterday. "He was an Eagle Scout. He took children hiking, swimming. He went to Penn Hills High School and Dickinson College. What did he do after college? He went right into the Army. He had no time in between. He's only 24."

Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky, 30, of 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky. Died Aug. 12 in Najaf when his unit came under small arms fire and a grenade attack. Home, Passaic, N.J.

Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Ground Control Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Killed by enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Home, Milford, Mass.

His uncle, Dana Fontecchio, says that when Elia told them he was being sent back to Iraq for a second tour, "None of us moaned about it. He's a Marine. The gunnery sergeant. They need him."

The surgeon at the forward hospital where they operated on Fontecchio said a helicopter was waiting to fly him to Baghdad when he died.

Pfc. Raymond J. Faulstich Jr., 89th Transportation Company, 6th Transportation Battalion, 7th Transportation Group, Fort Eustis, Va. Died Aug. 5 in Najaf when enemy using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades attacked his convoy. Home, Leonardtown, Md.

"He had a problem with drugs and alcohol and went one place to the other," his mother, Linda, was saying last night. "Then he met a girl he loved. Her family said she couldn't see him unless he straightened out. He did. For her love. He joined the Army, and they married.

"When the two Army men came to the house to tell us, I was inside cleaning. I started to scream. 'Oh, my God! My son is dead!' He had his rosary beads in his pocket when he was killed. His wife, Crystal, had been out, and when she came over and saw the crowd in the yard she thought he was home on his two-week leave that he was supposed to be on. She's 19. She was going to go to college but she just can't do it now.

"My son was a beautiful young man. Everybody speaks about his smile. He had such a beautiful smile. My husband's smile. I say to my husband, 'Could you please smile so I can see my son's face?'"

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

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