HELENA (AP)
Gov. Brian Schweitzer has ordered that flags be flown at half-staff Friday and Saturday in honor of a Helena soldier who died in Iraq. The body of Army Pvt. Daren A. Smith, 19, will arrive in Butte on Thursday, said Maj. Garth Scott of the Montana National Guard. His funeral is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at Wayrynen-Richards Funeral Home in Butte. It will be followed by a graveside service at 12:30 p. m. at Fort Harrison, near Helena. Smith died last week in Baghdad of injuries that weren't related to combat, the Department of Defense said. The death remains under investigation. Smith was in a unit sent to Iraq from Fort Polk, La. Samantha Evans, Fort Polk media affairs officer, said Smith joined the Army in March 2007 and arrived in Louisiana in August. "Everything else is under investigation," she told the Independent Record newspaper. "A noncombat injury can be anything not dealing with actual combat. I wouldn't speculate a guess. There are a lot of things that could include." Smith was born in Butte and lived there until he reached middle school, when he moved to Helena. He graduated from Helena High School in 2006 and completed a semester at the University of Montana-Helena Col lege of Technology, Scott said. In Iraq, Smith served in a small platoon that moved ahead of larger units and scouted out conditions. Efforts to contact his family Tuesday were unsuccessful. In Smith's honor, Schweitzer has ordered that national and state flags be flown at half-staff beginning Friday and ending Saturday at sundown. As of Tuesday at least 3,895 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,171 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The AP count is two higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST. The British military has reported 174 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Austral ia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.
