WHY YOU HAVE TO READ MORE THAN THE HEADLINE

Here is the headline:

Young enlistees have highest death rate in Iraq

Given that "young enlistees" make up the majority of the Army, this headline is as startling as one that reads "Britons found to prefer speaking English".

It is only when one reads the body of the story one finds this:

Commissioned officers such as Army Lt. Col. Charles Buehring, who was killed Sunday in an enemy rocket assault on a Baghdad hotel, have accounted for just 11 percent of the troops who have died in Iraq and surrounding areas since the war began March 19. They also were about twice as likely to die during the major combat of the war in March and April than in the six following months.

Non-commissioned officers such as sergeants have made up 34 percent of the fallen U.S. fighting force, while privates such as Guerrera, specialists and other grunts comprise 55 percent of the toll.

That breakdown is more top-heavy than has been typically seen in past conflicts, where non-officers - who commonly make up 85 percent of the force - died in numbers more proportional to their number in the ranks.

So, in fact, this war is remarkable in that, proportionately, young enlistees comprise fewer of the casualties than is historically the case.

But you wouldn't have known that reading the headline, would you?