Washington ? Four of every 10 American military service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have come from small towns and rural places, according to analysis from Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton.

“The figures, sadly, speak for themselves,” Skelton said. “Rural and small-town young men and women are stepping up to the plate to defend our country, and I’m proud of them, immensely proud of them.”

Skelton, the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, had his staff analyze casualty reports from the Defense Department. He found that 43.5 percent of troops killed in Iraq and 46.4 percent of troops killed in Afghanistan through Oct. 24 came from towns with fewer than 20,000 residents.

The 14-term lawmaker wanted to find out the numbers for a couple of reasons. First, he kept running into parents in his rural Missouri district with sons and daughters in the military.

He also saw a statistical analysis saying that troops who died in Iraq were 39 percent more likely than the nation as a whole to live in counties with fewer than 100,000 people.

“It seemed to me there was an unusually large number of service personnel coming from small towns and rural America, so I had our staff run the numbers, and I was right,” he said.

The statistical analysis he read was from the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman newspaper, which hired consultant Robert Cushing to review the more than 300 troops who died in Iraq.

“Ideally, it would be wonderful to see people from all across the spectrum” join the military, Skelton said. “But it looks like a disproportionate number of small-town and rural Americans are joining the military, and sadly, those that are killed in action in the military reflect that same proportion.”

Skelton said of the 336 troops killed in Iraq as of Oct. 24, 107 were from cities with populations of greater than 100,000. The rest came from smaller cities and towns.

Fewer troops have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, which ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan. But Skelton found similar proportions among the 84 who had died as of Oct. 24.