Saturday May 01, 2004 at 12:56 AM

Witness to The Fallen

Appearing in  Truth & Justice

A bit of context: On April 30, 2004 ABC’s Nightline broadcast the names and photographs of the 725 American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq since the start of the US invasion. This post was written during the airing of that broadcast.

“I am opposed to sustaining the illusion that war can be waged by the sacrifice of a few without burdening the rest of us in any way. I oppose the notion that to be at war is to forfeit the right to question, criticize, or debate our leaders policies.”

Ted Koppell
Nightline, April 30, 2004

I don’t generally blog things in real time but here I am watching Nightline at 11:38pm on Friday night and we’ve only just begun with the names. There are hundreds and hundreds to go. Already my mind is reeling. All these men — and they are *mostly* men — dead. How we do not know, but dead nonetheless.

I’m yet to see anyone who is as old as I am now — a not terribly ancient 40 years. Most of them are in their early twenties. Quite a few in their thirties, punctuated by the occasional teenager.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to die in combat, or even a combative environment. These are all individuals, who I suspect, had no idea what they were getting into to.

A photo of Darrell Dent just came by and in lieu of a personal photograph they showed an image of flag-draped coffins. I’m left to wonder how anyone, anywhere can possibly think such images are in any way disrespectful of the fallen service people. The images are so respectful and tasteful as to be beyond reproach. Those who argue the images of coffins have a political undertone are those who imbue such images with political meaning. Nothing could be more respectful to those who have slipped from our grasp than to acknowledge their deaths in a public forum. Having died in service of the public, they deserve to be seen.

Seventeen minutes into the broadcast and I sense that we’re still barely at the beginning. I’m yet to discern the order of the images. I suspect it’s in order of death — most definitely not alphabetical. But the broadcast gives us no time reference. For all I can tell we’re still in the middle of “major combat operations”. Or perhaps we’re at the point where President Bush perpetrated his infamous stunt on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln. Unless your one of the families, it’s impossible to know.

These are VERY young men who are dying in Iraq. Hardly any of them bear the look of a life fully-lived. No, these are individuals pulled from the middle of life and placed in an impossible situation. Individuals who met a fate impossibly foreign to the vast majority of Americans.

We are a nation of over 275 million people, 1.5 million of which serve in the Armed Forces. That’s less than half a percent of the population of a nation which comprises only four percent of the world. And still, still they are the most deadly, decisive, and powerful destructive force ever assembled in the history of the world.

We’re back from the second commercial break — this one for the Peace Corp — and still the names keep rolling. Slightly twenty minutes into the broadcast and already I am growing bored, numb to it all. The names — so many names. What do they all mean? They are but strangers in my living room. Flashing across my TV for scarcely a moment and somehow I’m to believe that they died for me? For my freedom?

But they are present. They are part of me. They are members of this nation and of this experiment to which we are all witness.

What were they thinking when they volunteered for service? What could have drawn them to such a life? They are *all*, I repeat, *ALL* volunteers. This isn’t Vietnam or World War II. We were attacked to be sure, but we weren’t invaded. None of us, even the most paranoid, thought the enemy was waiting to invade just off the shore of Jersey or California.

No. This was a war of choice. A war of choice against an enemy foreign and distant and unknown.

We won this war. We fought. We destroyed. We invaded. But now, now we lose a soldier, or two, or ten, nearly every day. And I wonder how long the American electorate is willing to endure. How long are we willing to accept a conflict in which we were told we would be welcomed with roses? A conflict designed to rebuild a nation which was able to repay for its own rebuilding but which costs us some $4,000,000,000 a month. A nation to be rescued from a dictator, one of the worst in human history, but which is now in worse shape than when we found it.

But now, one year after our victory and subsequent invasion, a full third of that same nation says that life was better under their dictator. What kind of life can they be facing that a full third of them feel life was better when Saddam Hussein — the same man who executed hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen — how bad can it be that a third say life was better before the Americans arrived?

What have we done?

And still the names continue. Some thirty four minutes into it all and still the parade goes on. It all reminds me of a high-school graduation at some impossibly large public high school. But none of these young people are graduating. Rather, they are dead. Killed in combat or perhaps accidents. Does it matter? They are on foreign soil in a land distant and remote and of questionable connection to our own fertile soils or national security.

And finally we move to the closing comments. Ted Koppell describes the motive for the broadcast and how images of the fallen can be used in both support and opposition to a conflict. Trying to put the numbers in context, “During WW II more than 16 million American served in uniform and more than 400,000 of those died.”

And now a bit of explaination, “The reading tonight of those 721 names was neither intended to provoke opposition to the war nor was it meant as an endorsement…You are convinced that I am opposed to the war. I am not.”

“I am opposed to sustaining the illusion that war can be waged by the sacrifice of a few without burdening the rest of us in any way. I oppose the notion that to be at war is to forfeit the right to question, criticize, or debate our leaders policies.”

Thank democracy for Nightline and a plague upon David D. Smith, CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group who banned their ABC affiliates from broadcasting tonight’s program.

…

Now that is it over I am a bit lost. Lost to wonder. Wonder what it must feel like to those Iraqi families, as we — the families and fellow countrymen of the fallen soldiers of the most powerful force ever assembled — lament and mourn our losses? How must they feel?

How must they feel knowing that ten of thousands of their fellow citizens — women, children, and infants — uncounted thousands have also died as a result of these events. How must they feel, having volunteered for nothing?

For surely their lives must be improved, our having exterminated one of the most evil dictators in modern times. Surely it must be so. And yet I wonder. Wonder if our war of choice hasn’t traded evil for chaos, malevolence for anarchy. Is this democracy? Is this the best America has to offer the world? Is this the path to a better, brighter, more hopeful future for our children? And what does any of this have to do with nineteen hopeless men, four airplanes, and September 11th?

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