So why didn't more news outlets join The New York Times on Tuesday to commemorate that 1,000 soldiers had died in the U.S. operation in Afghanistan? Maybe because 1,000 did not.

Well, it depends on how you count them.

A Times explanation with its story that also included a two-page gallery of photos of the dead stated its formula for computing the number of dead included more than the official military count.

“By one count it is over 1,060. By another, it is around 970. By a third, it is just over 1,000. Which is right? It depends on how you define the boundaries of the war,” the Times explained. “If one limits the count to Afghanistan, the number drops below 1,000. According to the Department of Defense, at least 969 American service members died in Afghanistan or as a result of incidents or injuries that occurred there. Most of those deaths were combat related, but the number also includes vehicle accidents, aircraft crashes and suicides.”

So it would seem that the Times got a little ahead of itself, so says Debra Saunders, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, who took on the issue and explained why her paper and others did not notice the milestone.

“On the upside, it's great the New York Times has the resources to write compelling stories about the men and women who face danger and endure deprivation in order to keep America safe,” Saunders wrote. “On the downside, because the Times has reported its ahead-of-the-curve statistic, when the official figures catch up, it will be old news.”

Sadly, whenever soldiers die in a war, it is new news.