http://www.facesfromthefront.com/content/view/137/3/ -- Taking a Number "The Pentagon announced that Staff Sgt. George T. Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, died Saturday in San Antonio of injuries sustained Oct. 17. Alexander was wounded in Samarra, a town 60 miles north of the Iraqi capital. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga." Unfortunately, the media and the anti-war factions will never see Staff Sgt. Alexander as more than number 2000--a number used to wage a political battle. Number 1,999 was Sgt. Jacob D. Dones, 21, of Dimmitt, Texas, died in Hit, Iraq, on Oct. 20, when his forward operating base was attacked by enemy forces using indirect fire. Dones was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Irwin, Calif. Number 1,998 was Lance Cpl. Kenneth J. Butler, 19, of Rowan, N.C., who died Oct. 21 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces near Al Amariyah, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. Number 1,997 was Cpl. Seamus M. Davey, 25, of Lewis, N.Y., who died Oct. 21 from an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the vicinity of Haqlaniyah, Iraq. He was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve’s 4th Force Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division, Reno, Nev. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, his unit was attached to 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward). Unlike the pundits who will bray this evening on the cable channels and the activists who will hold vigils in Washington, D.C., I have been to the country where these men died. I have been to the exact village where 1,998 died. I have walked the dirt roads of Al Amariyah. I have been in businesses and houses around Amariyah. I have rode in a humvee up and down the bomb littered roads leading into Amariyah. I may not have known Lance Corporal Butler, but I spent months with Lance Corporals--many in the Corps for less than a year--who patrolled Amariyah. I lived at Camp Smitty for month, the Forward Base where he likely slept, played cards and listened to his i-pod. I spent days baking in the sun, walking and bouncing around in a humvee on that patch of desert where the fertile canal country ends and the wasteland begins. If Butler was anything like the other Lance Corporals I filmed for months on end in Iraq he was a smart, strapping, kind and fearless man. As an grunt in an infantry battalion, Butler could run and hike wearing 60 pounds of gear. He could endure heat and stress that would kill lesser men. And everyday he went out into Amariyah, patrolled the villages and the main roads knowing that any minute could be his last. And he volunteered to do it. Butler was willing to stand on a wall that most Americans are scared to look at, let alone get close to. Numbers 2,000, 1,999 and 1,997 also strapped up every day to stand on a wall many in America are willing let crumble. And to those who would let that wall crumble, they are just numbers. They are not men of action and conviction, to the anti-war faction, they are merely numbers of sufficient quotient to send a press releases and hold press events. I asked Marines all across Al Anbar province two questions: 1. If something goes bad and you die here. What would you think of people who used your death to protest the war. 2. After being here, and knowing what you know, would you still join the Marines/volunteer for this deployment? The answers were invariably the same. They did not want their death to be used as a prop and they would make the same decision all over again. These young Lance Corporals and Non-Commissioned Officers volunteered to join the Marines, many with the intent of coming to Iraq. And while few would say they like war, they all recognize the necessity of it. The Marines and soldiers who fight in Iraq are not numbers, but the media and certain groups are treating them as if they were. Number 2,000 was a national treasure, just as number 1,435 was and number 2,038 will be. For what is the value of a man who will fight a war for others who despise him? But for those who are willing to take action, there would be no wall at all hold back evil and those men and women on the wall deserve more than a number.
Not to distract from the subject but that's 2,000 dead. There are probably tens of thousands of casualties. American families are paying an incredible price for this war.
Very thoughtful article. When a firefighter dies in the line of duty, it's sad but most people would aknowledge it as the epitaph of a life well spent. I believe that most of the soldiers in Iraq believe they are making the world a better place which is more than I'm doing. In light of the recent Pat Tillman article, I do think one shouldn't claim that everybody there believes in the war and thinks they are fighting the good fight. Everybody who died was a complex individual with complex individual feelings. To claim 100% support would be just as exploitive as those who ring up every death as a reason to end the war. However, even the soldiers who don't believe in the specifics of this war, like a firefighter who saves a crack dealer from a burning building even though they see the awful effects of crack addiction regularly deserves total respect. Conversely, people who use their deaths as a poliical tool have a special level of hell reserved. BTW, here are the (slightly outdated) casualty figures from globalsecurity.org: <table cellpadding="5" border="1"> <tr> <td>US Named Dead:</td> <td>US Reported Dead:</td> <td>US Casualties:</td> <tr> <td>1989</td> <td>14</td> <td>15,603</td> </tr> </table> That casualty number seems huge until you see the breakdown of evacuations from Iraq: <table cellpadding="5" border="1"> <tr> <td>Wounded In Action:</td> <td>Non-Battle Injury:</td> <td>Disease:</td> <tr> <td>2,710</td> <td>5,659</td> <td>11,432</td> </tr> </table>
Not until I see *loved ones* from the members of US Congress who voted for the War, from the members in the current and previous Bush Jr. Administration who were involved in designing of the War, and from the top executives in the military-industrial complex started to serve in US military and die in combats in Iraq do I believe a tad of sincerity in their understanding of the consequence of this elective war.
Unfortunately, the media and the anti-war factions will never see Staff Sgt. Alexander as more than number 2000--a number used to wage a political battle. Note for most of the pro-war factions the Iraq War was political war. It is a knife that cuts both ways and hard for me to have sympathy for either side.
Please also note how skillfully basso posts this article to blunt any criticism of commentary of dead number 2000. Hey! If you mention the dead number 2000 or even acknowledge it, you aren't supporting the troops. But if you post articles condemning any criticism of the reason we've reached death number 2000 you're a true american. It’s a neat trick
I can only take this bullsh1t so long. Your entire article is a giant contradiction. The author claims that publicizing the deaths of soliders to protest the war is using the troops as mere numbers. Then he turns around and sights soldiers who have fallen in battle that liberals haven't mentioned. Did he ever interview these soldiers? No! Did he ever ask them if they would want their deaths used to support the war? No! HOLY CRAP! He's doing the same thing he's bashing liberals for! Uh oh, better lock up this thread on account of stupidity. Are you really so dense as to not see that this article is moral posturing just like the left's articles against the war? And finally, I am sick and tired of this cowardly name calling you resort to. You constantly argue that anyone who is against the war despises troops. You don't know me, you don't know many of the posters on this board. We don't hate troops, we hate to see thousands of people dying for a war that will only make things in Iraq worse. The truth of the matter is you do not have one single argument to justify a war that thousands of innocent people are dying in. So in an effort to justify your political views, you attack our motivations. Well, you know what, since you support the war in Iraq I will from now on insist that you are a rapist and murderer. Why you ask? Because sending troops into battle zones and starting a war means innocent people will die and others will be raped and beaten. Why do you support the rape and murder of innocent men, women, and children basso? It's not a very fun thing to have ludicrous charges leveled at you is it? Do you truly think Cindy Sheehan hates her son and the others who served or are serving in Iraq? Do you honestly think a mother hates her son and his comrades? Do you think that I wish ill for our troops? You don't. You're just too petty to come out and admit that you continue to support a war criminal and the worst president in US history with no justification other than a preexsisting political bias.
Frankly, how could the deaths of 2,000 soldiers in a war that a majority now thinks was a mistake and which has been consistently been opposed by a sizeable minority who were not deceived from the beginning, not be about politics?