Santa Barbara, Calif ? Lane Anderson sees the ghosts of fallen troops he knew in Vietnam when he looks out at the sea of white crosses that cover the sandy shore near Stearns Wharf.

The memorial, dubbed “Arlington West,” is made up of one small cross for each U.S. military death in Iraq, placed on the beach at sunrise and taken down at sunset every Sunday. Today, more crosses will be added to the mock cemetery for deaths in this past week’s fierce fighting at Fallujah and Ramadi.

Anderson made sense of his comrades’ deaths more than 30 years ago by telling himself the country had learned a lesson in Vietnam.

But last week, he said he couldn’t help drawing parallels between that conflict and the fighting in Iraq as he and more than a dozen volunteers arranged the crosses, each bearing the name, rank, age and hometown of a fallen U.S. serviceman or woman.

“I see a tragedy,” Anderson said. “I see Vietnam in its first year. Even then, people kept saying once we started the war we had to finish.”

Anderson and other volunteers from the Santa Barbara chapter of Veterans for Peace started erecting the crosses in November and intend to continue until all the troops come home from Iraq.

Stephen Sherrill conceived the idea and took it to the veterans group.

“Before, the casualties were just a number in the paper,” Sherrill said. “But I thought when Americans see the price we are paying, they will understand.”

Sherrill, a semiretired building contractor and longtime anti-war advocate, makes every cross. When he started, there were close to 400. By April 4, he had made 605.

The Santa Barbara beach crosses inspired similar tributes in Santa Monica, Oceanside and Ann Arbor, Mich., with plans for a display in Maine, said David Cline, national president of St. Louis-based Veterans for Peace.

Passer-by Ray Sargent approved of the memorial but disagreed with the anti-war message. The 77-year-old Korean War veteran believes President Bush had reason to send the military into Iraq.

“I think you people are beautiful for doing this,” he told a volunteer. “But we’ll never know until history tells us whether Bush was wrong or right.”

U.S. deaths in Iraq

As of Friday, 649 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations last year in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 455 died as a result of hostile action and 194 died of nonhostile causes. The department did not provide an update of these figures Saturday.

The British military has reported 58 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, five; Ukraine, four; Thailand, two; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia and Poland have reported one each.

Since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 511 U.S. soldiers have died — 346 as a result of hostile action and 165 of nonhostile causes, according to the defense department.

Deaths reported Saturday by the military:

• A U.S. Airman was killed Saturday in a mortar attack at Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad.

Identifications reported Saturday by the military:

• Marine Pfc. Christopher D. Mabry, 19, Chunky, Miss.; died Wednesday in fighting in Anbar province.
• Army Spc. Jonathan R. Kephart, 21, Oil City, Pa.; died Friday after being ambushed Thursday in Baghdad.

The following Marines died Thursday in fighting in Anbar province:

• Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher B. Wasser, 21, Ottawa, Kan.
• Marine Staff Sgt. William M. Harrell, 30, Placentia, Calif.
• Marine 1st Lt. Joshua M. Palmer, 25, Banning, Calif.
• Marine Lance Cpl. Michael B. Wafford, 20, Spring, Texas.

l Marine Cpl. Nicholas J. Dieruf, 21, Versailles, Ky.