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The Real Meaning of 4,000 Dead By LIEUT. SEAN WALSH

1 hour, 24 minutes ago



The passing of the 4,000th service member in Iraq is a tragic milestone and a testament to the cost of this war, but for those of us who live and fight in Iraq, we measure that cost in smaller, but much more personal numbers. For me those numbers are 8, the number of friends and classmates killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 3, the number of soldiers from my unit killed in this deployment. I'm 25, yet I've received more notifications for funerals than invitations to weddings.


The number 4,000 is too great to grasp even for us that are here in Iraq. When we soldiers read the newspaper, the latest AP casualty figures are glanced over with the same casual interest as a box score for a sport you don't follow. I am certain that I am not alone when I open up the Stars and Stripes, the military's daily paper, and immediately search for the section with the names of the fallen to see if they include anyone I know. While in a combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, it was in that distinctive bold Ariel print in a two-week-old copy of the Stars and Stripes that I read that my best friend had been killed in Afghanistan. No phone call from a mutual friend or a visit to his family. All that had come and gone by the time I had learned about his death. I sometimes wonder, if I hadn't picked up that paper, how much longer I would have gone by without knowing - perhaps another day, perhaps a week or longer until I could find the time and the means to check my e-mail to find my messages unanswered and a death notification from a West Point distro list in my inbox. The dead in Afghanistan don't seem to inspire the keeping of lists the same way that those in Iraq do, but even if they did it wouldn't matter; he could only be number 7 to me.


I'm not asking for pity, only understanding for the cost of this war. We did, after all, volunteer for the Army and that is the key distinction between this army and the army of the Vietnam War. But even as I ask for that understanding I'm almost certain that you won't be able to obtain it. Even Shakespeare, with his now overused notion of soldiers as a "band of brothers" fails to capture the bonds, the sense of responsibility to each other, among soldiers. In many ways, Iraq has become my home (by the time my deployment ends I will have spent more time here than anywhere else in the army) and the soldiers I share that home with have become my family. Between working, eating and sleeping within a few feet of the same soldiers every single day, I doubt I am away from them for more than two hours a day. I'm engaged to the love of my life, but it will take several years of marriage before I've spent as much time with her as I have with the men I serve with today.


For the vast majority of American's who don't have a loved one overseas, the only number they have to attempt to grasp the Iraq War is 4,000. I would ask that when you see that number, try to remember that it is made up of over 1 million smaller numbers; that every one of the 1 million service members who have fought in Iraq has his or her own personal numbers. Over 1 million 8's and 3's. When you are evaluating the price of the war, weighing potential rewards versus cost in blood and treasure, I would ask you to consider what is worth the lives of three of your loved ones? Or eight? Or more? It would be a tragedy for my 8 and 3 to have died without us being able to complete our mission, but it maybe even more tragic for 8 and 3 to become anything higher.


View this article on Time.com

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Not a supporter of the Iraq War here, but there are plenty of good reasons to get out of Iraq other than politicized death counts.

what is politicized, the death counts? Putting a face behind a number is too much for you?
Or you mean republicans feel guilty enough as it is?

Hey there Everyone ...

Gentlemen...
I must have picked up on the energy here...
i just logged on right now...

i was just checking in.

hello spqr ...
how's it going ?
it's been a while...


WarElephant...
Pleased to meet you

i'm heading out for a cruise to the river
on my mountain bike ~

so i will check back in later...

Death counts are politicized every time someone says "LOOK AT OUR MEN THEY ARE DYING FOR ______" or "HOW MANY MORE LIVES MUST WE WASTE FOR _____". Coming from a military family, I can assure you that politics means nothing on the battlefield. Death counts are seen as part of the job.

I oppose the Iraq war because it is unconstitutional and being used by international banking institutions to expand their markets. All other reasons are secondary to me.

Good points.
Still seeing the faces of those who died makes a difference, infac we are talking about it.
Awareness?

I agree it makes a difference, but it doesn't make the deaths any worse or better. Death is just death. It's an indiscriminate force during times of war.

Awareness of the war should be championed, but policy decisions should be made with the mind, NOT the heart.

Death is just death?

Have you ever faced death or seen someone who was about to die?

If you have, then death takes on a whole new meaning.

No, death doesn't take on a new meaning. It may seem more "real," but that doesn't change its effects. Crying in a warzone is what civilians do. Soldiers kill.

Perhaps, but I will ask the question again.

Please answer it.

Have you ever faced death or seen someone who was about to die?

Does getting a gun pointed at your head count?

Well, yes, I suppose it does.

Seeing someone else dying is no fun either.

They get all blue and are gasping for air.

i guess that would depend on who pointed it and why

and also if it was loaded or not loaded
and if person it was pointed at knew

are you asking because of experience

I was asking because of the comment 'death is just death'.

Death is more real, or so it seems, when it is about to happen to you or someone else.

I just thought the 'death is just death' comment somewhat trivialized the end of someone's life.

death is very real

have seen death first hand a few times

have fought death off of others a few times

have had unfriendly gun holders
point their gun at me a few times as well

life is life death is death

both are real

and death will bring the end to every life

are you speaking from experience

or from beliefs