Our Longest and Least Talked About War?

Do you ever get tired of hearing how Afghanistan is the longest, least talked about war? I find it inexcusable. The troops were sent into Afghanistan in October of 2001 and as of October 2012, they are still there but even if you use 2014 to calculate how long this war is, Vietnam is still the longest war.

Just to give you some perspective, the first casualty names on the Wall happened the day after I was born. The end names came two years before I graduated high school.

But take a good look at the following.

The Wall

"THE FIRST KNOWN CASUALTY
Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. is listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having a casualty date of June 8, 1956.
His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who has a casualty date of September 7, 1965."

"WHAT ARE THE DATES ON THE WALL?
The first casualty names inscribed were Dale R. Buis and Chester R. Ovnard (this name was a misspelling, it should have read Ovnand)were killed July 8th, 1959."
"The end was 18 Casualties killed" "on May 15th, (1975) during the recapture of the Mayaguez."

Just because some reporter decided a year or so ago to say that Afghanistan is the longest war, does not make the loss these families endured less. It makes it worse.

We should all thank God that we are not seeing over 58,000 lives lost in the War on Terror (Iraq and Afghanistan) but reporters have a habit of not talking about what they don't want anyone reminded of.

Afghanistan: Our Longest and Least Talked About War
Arianna Huffington
Huffington Post
Posted: 10/11/2012

In the last month, the United States hit three milestones in the war in Afghanistan. In late September, the 33,000 additional soldiers that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan in late 2009 came home, leaving 68,000 troops in the country as part of the 108,000-person NATO force. Also last month, the number of U.S. soldiers killed reached 2,000. And this past Sunday marked the 11th anniversary of the longest war in American history. Unfortunately, one milestone the U.S. has not yet hit is the answer to the question: Why on earth are we still there?

Maybe it's because, in addition to being America's longest war, Afghanistan is a contender for being America's least-talked-about war. In President Obama's weekly radio address, delivered the day before the 11th anniversary of the war, the word "Afghanistan" wasn't spoken a single time. Nor did we hear it once during Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Even though our presence in Afghanistan is a big drain on America's budget, in the first presidential debate last week the word came up exactly once, in the context of President Obama boasting about how he's willing to "take ideas from anybody," which is "how we're going to wind down the war in Afghanistan."

read more here

In case Huffington forgot, politicians stopped talking about Afghanistan as soon as troops were sent into Iraq and reporters let them get away with it.