You know what really pisses me off?

Look at this.

Nathan J. Schuldheiss, 27, of Newport R.I...died Nov. 1 near Balad Air Base, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. All were assigned as special agents to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
11/02/07 DoD Identifies Air Force Casualties (part 2)
Staff Sgt. David A. Wieger, 28, of North Huntingdon, Pa...died Nov. 1 near Balad Air Base, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. All were assigned as special agents to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
11/02/07 DoD Identifies Air Force Casualties (part 1)
Master Sgt. Thomas A. Crowell, 36, of Neosho, Mo...died Nov. 1 near Balad Air Base, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. All were assigned as special agents to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
11/02/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties
Pvt. Cody M. Carver, 19, of Haskell, Okla... assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning...died Oct. 30 of wounds suffered in Salman Pak... died in Salman Pak
11/02/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties
Pfc. Rush M. Jenkins, 22, of Clarksville, Tenn... assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning...died Oct. 30 of wounds suffered in Salman Pak... died in Salman Pak
11/02/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties
Sgt. Daniel L. McCall, 24, of Pace, Fla... assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning...died Oct. 30 of wounds suffered in Salman Pak...died in Baghdad, Iraq
11/02/07 MNF: Airmen killed during combat operations (Balad)
Three Airmen were killed Nov. 1 while performing combat operations in the vicinity of Balad Air Base, Iraq. All three were assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Balad AB.
11/02/07 BBC: Bomb kills Polish soldier in Iraq
Corporal Andrzej Filipek was killed when his convoy struck an improvised explosive device (IED) while patrolling the streets of Diwaniya. The three injured soldiers are being treated in a hospital near the scene of the blast.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

It's so impersonal. It's like these aren't people that have people that love them and depend on them and whose lives aren't influenced and enhanced by their very existance. So, so and so just happened to get blown up by some by the road bomb that some so and so put there because they're a terrorist so and so and they are really bad because they don't love freedom.

How the hell are we going to get this to stop?

It is not easy to think about the toll this fiasco of a "war" is taking on our country.
I have marched in DC, Maine, and Chicago.
I have bumper stickers all over my car, 3 signs and symbols of peace on my lawn and flower beds.
I have tried to teach my 4th graders that diplomacy and reasoning is much more reasonable than fighting and bullying.

But...it's not enough.

I don't want another mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, best friend, or lover to have to learn that their loved one is not coming home.

I am so frustrated and angry. As my frog says...

It's just so bizarre that in 2007 this is still going on. We're in the space age, for god's sake! Yet here we are still slaughtering each other like it's the Dark Ages.

We are supposed to be civilized.
Sorry, I don't find warfare civilized by any stretch of the the definition.
I think there is an important base word in the word evolution. I know Darwin would approve, or at least get it.
You are right about the Dark Ages. I think that's where we're at. Now our job is to get us the hell out of it and back into the Age of Enlightenment.

I want to remember every day.

:cry:

"It's so impersonal..."

It SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :grr:

And is so unnecessary.... :(

K&R'd

I haven't seen any coffins returning from Iraq. Surely if real soldiers were dying over there the nation would see their flag-draped coffins so that we could collectively honor their service. :sarcasm:



Pisses me off too.

there was a personal story w/ every casualty? icasualties.org gets it's info from official DOD sources, and it seems to be a huge job as it is.
Maybe there's a website where someone updating icasualties.org is also adding a personal note about each one?

when available. and they link it.

There's no way I'm trying to criticize the sentiments of the OP, I was more looking for additional information.
Thank you.

In my favorites list DU is at the top, and IC is next. In fact, each morning, I go to their website first, and only after I have read the very comprehensive list of news items they have, do I come here to read the other news.
Sometimes I Google a name I find on their DOD announcements, and sometimes I just use their links.
The folks that keep the website running are amazing. I rely on them to give the most accurate and realistic news about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kudos to them. NO ONE does a better job of reporting on these particular issues.

"It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics"


You reside in great company.

I have a pin I made. It has little wooden interchangeable beads with numbers on them. Unfortunately, I have to change the numbers daily, to reflect the loss of lives. I remember when I first made the pin. The number in the thousands place was a one. Then it was a two, and it will soon be a four.
What upsets me so much, is the fact that even among the few who have any idea how many of our "children" have been lost, is the fact that so many have no idea that the number is so large, and of those that do realize the number, I wonder do they really appreciate that these are not just numbers, but real people. I figure for every number, your need to multiply it by a minimum of twenty, just to take into account the number of people it personally affects.
The pin is a great conversation starter. The most common comment is about how they had no idea there were so many. My 4th graders took notice, and have commented on the changes they see.

"The Death of one is a tragedy, the Deaths of millions but a statistic."?

Goggle is my friend.

I have to say, that's a really sick statement. I find it very difficult to think of mass deaths as purely statistics. Holy bespikinkers, what makes people be so ugly?

of people, political enemies real and imagined, than Hitler and his Gestapo and his stinking death camps.
The horrors of humanity know no bounds.

11/02/07 MNF: Airmen killed during combat operations (Balad)
Three Airmen were killed Nov. 1 while performing combat operations in the vicinity of Balad Air Base, Iraq. All three were assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations at Balad AB.


SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS AF Officers killed during 'COMBAT'

WTF!!!!!

Hello.... is there anybody out there.......

Special investigations...of course you're involved directly in combat situations. I think they follow right behind camp cooks, or dietary specialists, when it comes to areas of combat.

Don't you know that you can stroll down any Iraqi street, without concern about your personal safety? Just ask any of the contingent from out legislative branch who have recently visited there on their fact finding missions. So what if it took 18 brazillion helicopters hovering overhead, a few hundred home invasions, and a handful of innocent civilians imprisonments and/or deaths to secure the marketplace.

And you can directly thank our special investigative units and camp cooks for this unique opportunities!

Meet Cody...



The Department of Defense on Friday confirmed that an Oklahoma soldier had been killed Tuesday in Iraq.

Army Pvt. Cody Carver, 19, of Haskell and two other soldiers died of wounds they suffered in Salman Pak, Iraq, when enemy forces engaged their unit with small-arms fire and an improvised explosive device, according to a release from the Department of Defense.

This young man was a recruiter before he was sent to the occupied country. Someone please explain to me how a nineteen year old can be a recruiter. I know, he joined in 2006,but how can a person be a recruiter and then a goner by September. I mean he didn't even complete basic training until June 2006, and he was sent to the occupied country in Sept. 2007, and that was it.

It's just not right or just...
How are we going to stop this?

Is to get one person for every American service person killed in the war. Each one carries a sign with the picture of a service man or woman which has their name and date of death on it. Their face fills the sign, the statistics are printed along the bottom. The drumroll begins. We're all dressed in black and we walk single file down Pennsylvania Ave in dead silence, the only sound the endless drumroll. We fill into the park - still in single file -- across from the WH, and just stand there holding our signs, with the haunting drumroll continuing. After a while, we file back out and continue back the way we came.

A funeral procession.

300,000 homeless veterans are extremely personal.

Walter Reed is extremely personal.

400,000 backlogged cases at the Veterans Administration is extremely personal.

Blackwater is extremely personal.

$2,400,000,000,000 is extremely personal.