4,000 Big news but what about the rest?

4,000 gone but there are so many more. Why the fixation on just what is happening in Iraq and not in Afghanistan as well? Or those who have died back home because of PTSD and suicide? Do they not matter? As the administration love to blend the two occupations together it would be a great thing if they even acknowledge Afghanistan or the fact we lost 490 there as well. Were their lives no less worthy or less of a sacrifice? How about the sons, husbands, wives, daughters who also lost their lives because they were wounded in service to this nation by PTSD? Seems that 6,000 a year merit some attention within all of this. 4,000 is a tragic number but it does not come close to the true price being paid by those who serve.

The following is from Stars and Stripes. In it you'll read what some have to say about what they are doing there. I selected these two because they seem to sum up what I'm thinking as well.


From Stars and Stripes

It’s not that troops are oblivious to the cost.

“That’s 4,000 families without a son or husband or wife or daughter,” said G Troop First Sgt. James Adcock, 32, of Beeville, Texas. “They all need to be remembered, but the guys who served with them are never going to forget, and that’s what’s important. We don’t need a running tally to remind us we’re in a dangerous job.”

The meaning of the 4,000th death was open to interpretation.

Maj. Chuck McGregor, a Marine Corps reservist who commands Military Transition Team 131 in Diyala province, took the occasion to criticize the influence of companies working under contract in Iraq.

“If soldiers and Marines are dying to support these contracts then something is wrong,” he said.

“There’s an obnoxious number of contracts out here and money being poured into missions that are half-baked. I hope the next administration has a better approach to keeping peace here and abroad than this one.”
go here for the rest
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53571

They do all need to be remembered. It's very difficult when the media paid only 3% to reporting on it because their time has been taken up with the economy and the election. You'd think they would find some time to pay more attention to Iraq and at least some attention on Afghanistan but the American public seems to think that Afghanistan is either part of Iraq or has been over a long time ago. You can't really blame them. They have no interest in looking into what is going on with our men and women serving this country because if they cared, they would find the time. The most attention the media has paid on Iraq happens when it is an easy number to report on and they like to round it off to the nearest thousand.

The other thing we heard of from the media is the term "in vain" and when you get right down to it, they didn't die in vain or serve in vain. They were willing to lay down their lives for what their country asked them to do and for those they served with. What they were not willing to do was to be used, abused, abandoned there and then abandoned right back home when they are forced to fight to have their wounds tended to and their lost incomes replaced so they could provide for their own families.

I keep saying that people who know what's going on do really care, but there are very few who really do. It's very sad.