Is Iraq the new forgotten war?

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Soldiers from the 17th Fires Brigade and 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division arrive by air and convoy to assist the Iraqi Army provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the citizens of Faddaqhryah and Bahar in Basra Province.

Spc. Maurice A. Galloway/U.S. Army

Before the sympathy, Britney Hocking sometimes gets skepticism when she shares that her older brother was killed last month in Iraq.
“I’ve actually had people ask me: ‘Do you mean Afghanistan?’ ” she said.
Some also have wondered aloud whether Sgt. Brandon Hocking’s death was a freak accident.
That a soldier could still be killed in Iraq by an improvised explosive device surprises people. Our presence there and the potential for violence has largely faded from the American conscience.
Hocking’s death, one of the latest since the official end of combat operations in August, serves as a grim reminder of what is fast becoming a forgotten war. The United States has spent eight years of war in Iraq, with 4,443 servicemembers killed there. About 46,000 troops remain on the ground in “advise and assist” roles, and 23 servicemembers — 11 this year — have been killed since the mission change.
Iraq was once the dominant story on any given front page and nightly newscast. Today, attention has dropped to less than 1 percent of the daily news, according to the Pew Research Center.
Coverage spiked for a week in August when President Barack Obama declared the end of combat operations, but even then Americans were paying more attention to the salmonella outbreak in eggs, the center found.
In January, nearly two thirds of the people surveyed by Pew said they were only somewhat interested, not too interested or not interested at all in news about Iraq.

Hocking, a 6-foot-7 small arms repair specialist, was buried Sunday on what would have been his 25th birthday.
He had recently reenlisted for six years after the Army agreed to send him to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in his home state of Washington. His family said he wanted to be closer to his parents and watch over his five younger sisters.