Another grim milestone has been reached. Over 2000 American soldiers have died in Iraq — 2001 at this time. You can learn more about these brave men and women of the American armed forces at CNN’s alphabetical listing, or the Washington Post’s list by date. You can see the places and dates they died mapped out or you can see their hometowns mapped out.
This figure does not include Iraqis. The death toll among Iraqis is even worse, most of them innocent civilians.
If you wanted to have just one second of silence for each of the fallen American soldiers, it would take you 66 minutes and 20 seconds. That’s longer than an episode of your choice of evening TV drama, about as long as any 3 half hour shows without commercials. You could perform John Cage’s 4″ 33″ over seven times. If you prefer more traditional music — say, with notes — you could listen to almost any recording of Anton Dvorak’s New World Symphony and probably have time left over for his Academic Festival Overture.
No surprise, support for the war is waning despite commentators who call the death toll historically low (and then going on to point out that nobody knows exactly how many amputees there are) and military officials who call the figure an “artificial mark on the wall” only discussed by “individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives.”
Specific agenda? Ulterior motive? My only “agenda” is that we remember these people were human beings.