Well, as we get ready to ring in the New Year and celebrate living in the greatest country, let's not forget the efforts of our armed forces serving overseas as we close out this year and bring in a new one. According to the LA Times, this year's tally for U.S. troops killed was 319, compared to 155 in 2008. That tally did not include eight American intelligence officers killed in an audacious insurgent strike Wednesday on their base in eastern Afghanistan. It was the CIA's biggest one-day loss since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

Officials say it is due mostly to the crude but ever larger and deadlier roadside bombs built by the Taliban. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - American military fatalities in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared to the previous year, and U.S. officials and analysts acknowledge that the new year is likely to prove even more lethal. With the planned U.S. troop buildup, coupled with ever-deadlier tactics adopted by the Taliban and other insurgent groups, it is expected to result in at least a temporary spike in deaths and injuries among the nearly 70,000 American troops serving in Afghanistan and the additional 30,000 due to arrive in 2010. U.S. military officials point to an array of interlocking factors behind the insurgency's growing strength and widely perceived momentum. Those include widespread disaffection with the government of President Hamid Karzai, who last month took office for a second term after a fraud-tainted election.