Comments on Too Many Dead
It's been in all the papers.
This...I can't say anything that nobody isn't already thinking.
This is so fucked.
So, does that mean it isn't worth mentioning/discussing here?
Personally, this pisses me off. My job involves attending some of these soldiers' funerals and every one has been a heartbreaking experience. I can only imagine how I'd feel if someone from my family was killed and I had to share the memorial with several (if not many) families of other dead soldiers.
I know that people don't want to think too much about the war and specifically the casualties because we feel helpless and frustrated. It's easier for me to pretend that the KIAs are just numbers. That doesn't mean that the reality should be swept any further under the rug.
At the beginning of the month I was asking if we were going to hit 3,500 by July 4th. We could possibly hit it by JUNE 4th. 3,474 now, and May was the worst month since November 2004 and the third-worst ever. A surge in death.
FUCKERS!
I have to admit that even I'm a bit surprised by the move to 'express memorials.' Will there be a drive-thru option?
I can't imagine having a job where my coworkers are killed on a regular basis. Appalling is all I can say.
Meanwhile Canada continues to discuss totally leaving Afghanistan if the US doesn't live up to it's NATO committments and put some properly trained and supplied troops on the ground there.
They're tired of fighting the Real War.
And, in unrelated news, yet another person I trained was killed there. Thanks a lot, GW!
And now Bush is talking about staying there for 50 years.
http://www.americablog.com/2007/05/bush-says-us-presence-in-iraq-may.html
The disconnect between families of the working poor who are fighting this war and the Republican party regulars who all support war, yet skipped service, is startling. We should all feel a sense of personal loss about this war. But I think most of us don't and that is sad.
I spent 8 years in the military. It was during peace time in the early 1980s, so we didn't have to bury people too often. On two occasions, I served as part of an honor guard at military funerals (you know, those guys that fire the rifles in the air, and hand the flag to the grieving family member). It was peace time, so these were retired vets who'd died of things that old people die of, not young guys killed in the Baghdad meat grinder.
I think it would be incredibly depressing to be an honor guard at funeral after funeral after funeral, burying your friends. Mind you, I don't think it would be any less depressing to have to bury a bunch of them once a month. Ugh.
Can we just declare victory and leave now. Please.
Meanwhile Canada continues to discuss totally leaving Afghanistan if the US doesn't live up to it's NATO committments and put some properly trained and supplied troops on the ground there.Well, it's being discussed, but there's probably not a chance in hell that the Canadians will be out of Afghanistan while the Conservatives are in charge. If the Liberals get back in, that may change the debate.
I think having mass funerals is just appalling. Admittedly, if I was having to do funerals every day of the month... I suppose I could see wanting to have a few funeral-free days.
@9 - unlike you, during my seven years, I was at 12 funerals, riskier service.
But the sooner we get the heck out of Iraq, the sooner they, like Vietnam, will figure things out on their own.
I am one of the soldiers from Fort Lewis here in Iraq. How dare they? The WORST thing you can ever do to a fallen soldier is forget them. What is a memorial if not a way for people who knew you to come together and say to each other, "We will remember you." A military memorial even more so as the soldier gave their life, the only real thing any soul in this world truly has, in service of their country. Whether they beleived in the conflict or not, they did their duty, they stuck to their oath, to the end. And now, it's become such an inconvenience to the day to day running of their HOME-GODDAMN-STATION, that now they're to do just one big memorial a month. Goddamn...
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