On Memorial Day, U.S. soldiers in Iraq contemplate 'forgotten war'

On Memorial Day, U.S. soldiers in Iraq contemplate 'forgotten war'
By Leila Fadel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 31, 2010; 4:40 PM

BAGHDAD -- Inside the ornate palace of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now the main headquarters of U.S. forces in Iraq, dozens of U.S. service members bowed their heads in prayer at a Memorial Day commemoration.

They thought about their families waiting for them to come home. They thought about the fallen comrades lost in the past seven years of occupation and war. They thought about what would come next.

At the end of 2011, the last U.S. service member is supposed to leave Iraq. Sometimes, the service members wonder whether people at home remember that despite the drop in violence, Americans and Iraqis still die here. About 92,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq; about 4,400 have been killed. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis have also been killed.

"We've become the forgotten war, like Korea," said Maj. Scott Stewart, an anti-terrorism U.S. Air Force officer with the United States Forces-Iraq.
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US soldiers in Iraq contemplate forgotten war