We all know that being a Secretary of Defense is hard work--so hard, in fact, that Sec'y Rumsfeld needed to use a signature machine to sign those condolence form letters. (Grieving family members, of course, were, shall we say,
unimpressed, and he has since abandoned the practice, according to the
Associated Press.)
In the same article, we hear Rumsfeld tell us that he hopes and prays "that every family member of those who have died so bravely knows how deeply I feel their loss."
Oh, yeah. Deeply.
In this story the other day about the disaster in the Mosul mess hall, a few of us discussed sending Rumsfeld some pens, since he will clearly need them to sign more letters to grieving family members. And fishhead had an even better idea: inscribing these pens with the names of every person killed as a result of this illegal war.
I thought this was a capital idea....
I could use some help organizing this, but as a beginning:
The names of all of the U.S. military casualties can be found here. Just for a start, here are the U.S. military casualties from March 2003:
With a bit of googlemonkeying, I found
this personalized Cross pen, where for $28 you can personalize the pen or the box with one of the aforementioned names of the fallen (plus about $5.75 for shipping). You can send a personalized pen to:
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
If anybody has a different pen to recommend, I'll update the diary with the appropriate links. And if you choose to send a pen, please note the person's name below. I will update the diary with additional names and information as appropriate.
Sure, signing all of those letters is hard work. But we'll be here to help you, Rummy.