Ripples of War: Effects of one bloody month felt nationwide

Every afternoon, seven days a week, Ed Epley has a 5 p.m. appointment with the war.

He pulls a protest sign from his maroon 1961 Volkswagen van and joins a one-hour peace vigil at the Benton County courthouse in Corvallis, Ore. Epley has been doing this, day in and day out, since the United States launched its first airstrikes on Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001.

"I really don't look at it as a job, it's just part of the daily task of being a citizen," says the 73-year-old retiree.

More than eight years later, this small, 365-day-a-year vigil may seem quixotic. But it stands apart for another reason: It has kept a steadfast focus on the war. Even though hundreds of thousands of troops have served, even though more than 800 members of the military have died, the marathon war in Afghanistan has, for long stretches, been off the nation's radar.

But one terrible month changed that.

A record number of deaths in October forced the nation to take new notice of Afghanistan as debate raged over whether President Barack Obama should send tens of thousands more troops there.

The deaths of 62 Americans — including three federal agents — in ambushes, roadside bombs and helicopter crashes turned a spotlight on an often-overlooked reality: The war is forever shaping lives in the United States.

In the month of October, that was painfully clear as young children learned their fathers were gone; as young men who not long ago donned high school football uniforms were mourned; as some soldiers came home, and others prepared to leave for a war that began its ninth year.

In these 31 days, the war rippled across America.

In Afghanistan, an ambush

The attack was quick and brazen.

With guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells, hundreds of insurgents stormed a remote U.S.-Afghan outpost deep in the mountains of northeast Afghanistan. They attacked simultaneously from three sides — a mosque, buildings and a perch on high ground in the Kamdesh district.

The fighting at Combat Outpost Keating lasted almost six hours.

When the deadliest battle in more than a year was over, scores of insurgents were dead, but so were eight Americans and three Afghan soldiers; 24 other Americans were among the injured.

The dead Americans were based at Fort Carson, Colo., members of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, which already has suffered staggering losses in Iraq.

What happened that first Saturday in October was soon felt in homes from Applegate in Placer County, to Kincheloe, Mich., to Lovettsville, Va.

By the time October was over, the losses would expand to 28 states.

In New Jersey, a roll call

In the quiet of his office at Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, N.J., Rabbi Douglas Sagal devotes part of each Friday afternoon to the war.

Using a Department of Defense Web site, he gathers a weekly list of those who died in Afghanistan and Iraq and reads their names at Friday night services just before the Mourner's Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.

"It came out of my belief that really the great sin of our time, maybe the great sin of our generation, is we send people to war and we insist on living our lives as if nothing is happening," he says. "I made a promise to myself that we are going to know the names of those who have died in the service of our country."

In Delaware, a salute

Inside the cavernous C-17 transport plane, Capt. Pete Hudlow had a solemn — and unforgettable — glimpse of the cost of war.

On a chilly pre-dawn morning in late October, the Air Force captain was part of an extraordinary scene that unfolded in the darkness at the Air Force mortuary at Dover Air Force Base. The president had arrived to honor 18 of the war dead being returned home.