The headline reads US Death Toll in Iraq reaches 4,000. I know others have posted on this topic, and ably so, but it is a big subject and I have not posted for awhile. And I feel moved to comment.
A couple of years ago, when U.S. combat deaths reached 2,000, George Bush's press secretary said it was "only a number." Only a number. Well, some could, I suppose, say that the 50,000-plus U.S. soldiers who died in Vietnam is "only a number" as, indeed, is the 50-55 million deaths, combat and otherwise, of WWII. Wars are often reduced to statistics, but such statistics as these are made up of individual lives - young lives at that - ended too soon, their dreams unrealized and their families in grief. Those who command the troops know that this sacrifice is sometimes necessary; indeed that in order to win a war such lives must be consigned to the battlefield without regard to the numbers, because the best way to win a war is to fight with all the resolve and all the commitment necessary that the war may end soon. Those who command the troops know this paradox is the awful reality of war.
But what about those who command those who command the troops?
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