Hundreds of flags .... 3,982 Americans dead
My office is at Brandeis University. Today as, I walked down the curving path that carries everyone through campus, I noticed that, lining the path, at very short intervals, were small American flags. A sign explained that there was one for every 10 American soldiers who had died in Iraq.
It's a long path. There were hundreds of flags.
By the time I made it across campus, tears were running down my face. It's not the Vietnam Memorial, but I found it profoundly moving nevertheless. I send my admiration to the students who organized it.
Yes, I know that it's just as grievous to think of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died. My friend Huda Ahmed, an Iraqi journalist, has personally lost more people than I can bear to consider, and reminds Americans periodically that Iraqi dead are just as important as American dead. And the truth is, Iraqis are the ones I think about most often when I am wrenched by the thought of the war.
And yet we all know that the human animal has a larger imagination for the suffering of those like us, for those closer to us in our various tribal memberships; it just seems to be how we are built. And so I do not apologize for weeping, today, for the American dead.
Why aren't they more on our minds? I can't disagree with Greg Mitchell's condemnation of the punditocracy's shallowness on the war. But there's another problem as well. My colleague and boss at the Schuster Institute, the investigative journalist Florence Graves, has been talking about the news blackout on pictures of American coffins, body bags, and of the wounded and dead. We've all seen the formal pictures of the young men and women in their uniforms. While my father, a Korean war vet, was dying of cancer last year and unable to move, he made a point of turning on the TV news so he could pause and listen to the reading of the names of the dead servicemen and women. It was very moving to watch my dad, a dying (and in most ways, an exceedingly irreverent) man, pause each day to honor those who had died for the country--even though he fiercely opposed the war.
But seeing those formal pictures, or reading those names, is just not as devastating as seeing the steady influx of coffins, or as seeing pictures of wounded or dying Americans. Why is the American media complicit in hiding this face of the war from us all?
Certainly, seeing that long parade of flags touched me in a way I hadn't been touched before. Would more pictures bring more outrage?
I read somewhere else that the total is now 3990. Isn't is pathetic that even the totals of our dead are not accurate? I also wonder if those who come home and die of their wounds are added in to the total. I'll bet that they aren't.
Are the suicides included? I doubt it. EJ, I know this is somewhat off of the subject that you wrote about, but honestly, I don't even think we have the full picture of the carnage.
Every time I see a smiling young face in a uniform in the newspaper, I know it is his/her death notice. The sisters are quoted saying how funny he/she was. Their co-workers are quoted saying how smart he/she was, and how much they would have done if they had lived. And then the parents -- invariably they say that their son/daughter really believed in what they were doing; they died doing what they loved. I wonder if they feel they just have to say that so they can go to bed and get up the next day. How could they say that their loved-one was duped into getting blown up so that millionaire friends of Bush/Cheney could become billionaires?
Cindy Sheehan couldn't bring herself to do that, and she is vilified on a daily basis. I don't agree with every word she has written, or everything she has done, or every person she has embraced, but I agree with more of her words and deeds than I do of our own president.
When will we ever realize that throwing 20 year-olds at each other is not the way for old men to solve their power problems?
March 19, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
One reason we have a steady influx of coffins is they are not presented to the public as happened during the Vietnam war.If they were exposed to the public there would be more of an out cry. The fact there is no draft also leads indifference to much of the citizenry. The lack of sacrifice by the large majority(less than 1% are sacrificing and fighting) leads to more indifference."It's not affecting me so I don't care" All the magnetic ribbons (probably made in China) on cars, means squat as long as we nave men and women in harms way in a country that was absolutely NO THREAT to us.
March 19, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Listening to GWB this morning lying about the costs of the Iraq war & how he's spreading democracy in the ME decided it for me- there's a candlelight vigil tonight in downtown & I'll be there. Don't as a rule knock off early on a weekday, but....
And yes, the media is hiding the costs of war, those human costs that can never be undone or repaid. Just as the media was complicit in the run up to invading Iraq, they're complicit now in prolonging the invasion.
March 19, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
From FAIR:
Of course, this also neglects Iraq deaths....March 19, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes E.J. I personally believe pictures would have a far more deeply felt and powerful impact on America's thought process in regards to war (this one or any other). And I think it's rather obvious that removing them from American's living rooms was an deliberate effort to manage the public's sentiment on the war. This past years "wind-down" in war coverage as elections near is also something I find very disturbing. Out of sight, out of mind - as the saying goes.
But I'd like to spend a moment on a mini-rant about symbols. In many ways I despise symbols. They are abbreviations. They are CliffNotes. They are malleable gestures with lots of room inside them for generalizations and fantasy with little room provided for reality or fact. As a matter of fact, symbols are a perfect way to hide reality and fact. They let people believe they are thinking about something when in fact they are doing very little thinking at all. Symbols are like a respected company logo (which are technically symbols too) - just because you put a respected logo onto a product does not guarantee that the product will be good or perform particularly well. Of course that is exactly what it's supposed to mean that but that's exactly why symbols are so powerful and so dangerous. They actually STOP the thinking process by abusing the trust we all place in the "meaning".
Now I'd like to make it clear that I am not trying to diminish your reaction to these flags. There are of course examples of symbols being used to remind people of important things as happened here in your case. But symbols are vague and unreliable reminders. Pictures and footage are much better story tellers. Grisly reminders of the realities of war are necessary to help remind humans that war is... a really bad idea. You'd think this would be a no-brainer concept but people have an uncanny knack of forgetting the most obvious things. These flags touched you in ways that differ from how they would likely touch others (not that they wouldn't impact others deeply too). Their impact will vary from person to person. You had a body of knowledge and personal relationships to tap into in order to complete the picture in a more full manner. Others may not have these things. They would be left with only passing clichés of patriotism and honor and things of that surreal nature. Some of these "ideals" used to have some amount of meaning and merit. In my mind they no longer do, having been usurped and bastardized as political and propaganda tools long long ago. And even before these things were abused they too were just inanimate "ideals" or symbols that distracted from the personal realities of loss and suffering that war brings.
In the end using symbols prevents large united groups of people from sharing something very visible and tangibly real as a rallying point in order to demand change. And this is precisely why we see very little news or pictures regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead we get American flag lapel pins on suits filled to the bursting point with ignorant. Instead we get politicians claiming success when reality says otherwise. Instead we get feel-good stories of a soldier home (from Guantanamo of all places) for his daughter's birthday party. Instead we get symbols. We only "know" what they tell us and they don't like to tells us much other than fabrication and fluff do they?
March 19, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did I mention that this particular memorial was at Brandeis? The context is exceedingly liberal. The students could count on this context in their viewers' minds.
And we had to walk through it simply to cross the campus. There is no way to avoid that path: you were surrounded by a numbing repetition of death, death, death. I found that turning the American flag into that meaning was simultaneously affecting and respectful.
March 19, 2008 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good morning E.J.
As I tried to say in my initial post, I was not trying to diminish your experience in any way nor insult those who implemented this display. The location this occurred and the students there were not intended be be slighted either, perhaps I should have worded my post more clearly.
My mini-rant on symbols was intended more in terms of the larger public (not those who might be better informed or may be attending liberal institutions). My intention was to point out that all that most people have in terms of visualizing and understanding what has been and continues to occur in these wars are symbols and that those are vague and inadequate informers and they fall short in bringing the masses together solidly and loudly against these wars.
I apologize if my post came across in some other way. Once again, I had no intention of insulting you or your experience.
March 20, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is the media complicit? The business of America is business, and war is big business. One of the largest military contractors, and the second largest corporation in the world, is General Electric, which just happens to own NBC, which just happened to own Dan Brokaw, and so it goes.
The United States is almost unique in the world in believing that war is a necessary, if not the predominant, element of foreign policy. When one looks at the governmental authority of the US and its disproportionate use of military aggression versus diplomacy one sees that the US, unlike most other countries, has a clear preference for a national policy of homicide.
The current war positions of the three presidential candidates? McCain favors more war in Iraq, Clinton goes with Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, and Obama has opted for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Somalia everyone wants to beat up on.
Better stock up on more flags so we remember those gentle heroes who were left behind.
a poem:
If you are able, save them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have left and what they have taught you
with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes you left behind.
This poem written by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, on January 1, 1970 in Dak To two months before his death. Major O'Donnell was a helicopter commander with the 170th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group, 52nd Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade. He and his crew were shot down on 24 March, 1970 while performing an extraction operation.
Major O'Donnell's remains were never found.
March 19, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to flowers every one....
March 19, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
...And lest we forget -- where have all the young men gone? Gone for soldiers, every one...
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
March 19, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
E. J., It's a lovely piece. But I wish I could be so sure that the scarcity of media attention to the names and photos of the dead accounts for much. As for the absence of photos, I take it that the coffins are ruled out-of-bounds by the Pentagon at Dover, DE. But every Sunday, Stephanopoulos lists the names of the American dead. There are many memorials in the papers. (True, the pictures are not so vivid, as today's T makes plain by breach.) So far as explaining the absence of zeal for an end to the occupation, I'm doubtful. John Mueller has convincingly pointed out how public opinion in favor of the Korean War (very little question-raising media and no protest to speak of) declined at about the same rate as public opinion in favor of the Vietnam war (lots of media, lots of protest), which in turn is about the same rate with respect to Iraq (erratic media, erratic protest).
March 19, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see your point, Todd. And the point of someone here (sorry, it's late, lost track of who said what) that because of the draft, Vietnam war deaths affected everyone, in every class--extremely important point (and I do agree that a draft, alas, would be the fastest way to end the war). And I am moved by those who think the pictures should be posted on blogs like this.
So let me be clearer: I do think that seeing the photos of coffins, body bags, and American war wounded *on television* might have a much more profound effect than seeing the memorials or formal pictures. On television, which feels as if it is in our living rooms. And on the front pages of major newspapers, which land on so many people's breakfast tables--still.
March 19, 2008 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
YES! It's time the US media started to ignore Bush's ban on coffins and bodybags, wounded and dead soldiers.
The US media is fully complicit in the lies that lead to this war, and it's time they went out on a limb to make up for their mistakes.
Bring on the photos of the dead "heroes". Bring on the rows and rows of flag-draped coffins. Bring on the video of young men screaming in agony as they die slow painful deaths "for their country". Bring on the lawsuits as Bush & Co try to stop the media from showing the People what is really going on over there.
Remember the outrage when those two US contractors' bodies were shown strung up on a bridge in Falluja? If the people of the USA can get an un-sanitized glimpse of what is really going on today, it could have a similarly jarring effect.
I urge readers to contact their local media organisations and challenge them to defy Bush's ban.
I urge soldiers in the field to take photos and video, and pass them on to the media. Send 'em to TPM and let Josh Marshall lead the way! What say ye, Josh?
If Josh won't publish the pics, there are hundreds of bloggers like myself who will.
March 19, 2008 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no comparison to the reporting now and during Vietnam. During the Vietnam war we saw actual war-shots, and agonizing photos of our soldiers on the nightly news. We saw their funerals; thier body-bags.
Because of the draft, many of them were people we knew. (My high-school sweetheart died in Vietnam, and 3 high school friends that I knew well. I don't actually know anyone who has died in Iraq)
Bush and Cheney, who were too cowardly to serve, made it illegal to show our soldiers doing the dirty work that they do, or their body's coming home. It has worked wonders for the 37% who don't think or read, and who just listen to "The surge is working." And it has worked resonably well to keep this abomination going 5 years against all facts and reality.
But just ask John McCain. He doesn't even know who our actual enemies are -- a perfect candidate for president; a ditto of the last one.
March 19, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have done a quick google search for some photos and posted them here. There are far more graphic images here. These photos obviously exist - it's time the "respectable" and "established" US media outlets dared to run them. Josh????
March 19, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
After reading a few more posts here I'd like to add that I'm not personally suggesting the gratuitous running of grisly war images on TV or online for the mere shock value. TV is bad enough as it is and the internet is...well... it's all mucked up with tubes and such. But I do think that since we are still at war after 5 years, a war we entered based entirely on lies and deceit by the way, that it should be covered with far more scrutiny & regularity and that we should not have to endure only these fluff pieces you see run around the holidays. It's sickeningly obvious to anyone with half a brain what's going on here. If the war is so very important to all of us here in America (and I'm by no means convinced at all that it is) than why is it no one seems to see fit to talk about it? And I mean honestly and intelligently talk about it, not President Bush's fantastical declarations of success and importance or Cheney's closeted meetings abroad.
I do think that real images of the reality of war have their place and can be done with some level of respect for all concerned. But to completely and intentionally exclude them disgusts me.
There's has almost always been some level of control governing the media's coverage of war. Vietnam is perhaps more of the exception than the rule. That war (and it's coverage) certainly appeared to me more like chaos than a well planned and executed military operation. The press was just one of many things that slipped out of the control of Washington and the Pentagon at that time.
What it all boils down to I guess is that I'm not exactly saying "more gore" but I am saying "enough fluff".
March 19, 2008 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bring 'em Home!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yApAg0hl490
March 19, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Because of the draft, many of them were people we knew. (My high-school sweetheart died in Vietnam, and 3 high school friends that I knew well. I don't actually know anyone who has died in Iraq)."
Sorry to hear that, CVille.
March 19, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
EJ,
Assuming that the Johns Hopkins study is close to reality, I think that unfortunately we're talking about hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, not tens of thousands.
March 19, 2008 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
mcboo,
I'm not suggesting the "gratuitous running of grisly war images ... for the mere shock value" either.
I'm talking about DOING SOMETHING to bring about real CHANGE.
Understand how the media cycle works: McCain and Bush get their fluffy B.S. announcements in the news every day because lazy journos and editors just regurgitate it like bird vomit. That's how they got their phoney cherry-picked WMD intelligence through the media lens and into people's minds in the first place.
Graphic images of the US war dead will shake the tree, make ordinary people sit up straight in their chairs, and force a public debate on issues Bush & Co would rather people don't think about.
March 19, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those wounded who die after being brought back home are not counted, nor are those who die at our military medical facilities in Europe, after being airlifted out of Iraq. (I believe that those who die while being airlifted out also are not counted.)
The rationale is that these folks did not die "in the theater of operations."
And yes, if they were counted the total would be significantly higher, according to what I have read.
March 19, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what about all that talk about blogs taking over from newspapers, etc? Lots of folks don't have a newspaper plonking on their breakfast table nowadays because they start their day with sites like TPM instead!
Of course I agree that the big newspapers and TV stations can have a much more profound affect, but it's been 5 years now and they still haven't even properly apologized for their roles in triggering this mess! So maybe it's a little idealistic to expect them to do something useful now.
Meanwhile, people keep on dying...
March 19, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The total psychic costs go way beyond the dead. When I see the ages of the soldiers who were killed, it makes me sad that they are nearly children. One mother commented simply, "I hadn't finished raising him yet." And then when I see one who is in his or her 30s, I think of the children they may have left behind and how those children's lives may be negatively impacted. It will last for generations.
Having worked in the aviation industry, I know a lot of Viet Nam-era military pilots who are still suffering. And these are the cream of the crop -- the guys who went on to have white-collar jobs and "make something" out of their lives. The war has not left them all these years later.
March 20, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think a very serious issue we face that is brought front and center in this thread is the staffing of our military under the current scheme. As is often pointed out, and very appropriately, this staffing scheme suffers from a serious inequality relative to the overall population. I know it is politically impossible to have a candidate or a sitting president come out in favor of a lottery or some other method to more fairly spread this burden but I see that as a thoroughly conflicted reason for ignoring this condition.
Individually and collectively we are rewarded by way of our citizenship and conversely if there is a burden to being so fortunate, it really needs to be shared in a way that assures the burden is felt equally across the population. The glaring inequality of the current scheme really demands reconsideration. We really need a much broader national intimacy with what it takes to remain free. The current scheme resolves to our freedon being taken for granted and ultimately will have a natural consequence that we will lose it.
March 20, 2008 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I spend every weekend up in Canada. I watch news on the tv in both English and French, and have seen loads of images and reports on Canadian soldiers who've died while fighting in Afghanistan. They show a head shot of the soldier, how s/he died, and then show Canadian soldiers walking the casket of the dead soldier off of the plane.
There's great discussion about getting Canadian troops out of Afghanistan. It's everywhere. And it's all treated, pro and con, as if it's a legitimate topic to talk about in depth.
Before the US invaded Iraq, maybe 500,000 people took to the streets in Montreal to protest the invasion. It's a number that's pretty impressive on paper (or on screen), but once you actually see that for yourself, on the street (I didn't know about it and tried to drive around it), it's daunting. Say what you will about Canada...lots of us Americans do...but the contrast between articulating and standing up for rights and freedoms in Canada should shame every single dismissive American.
March 20, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hi EJ,
I am representing 2 gitmo prisoners. I signed up for the DOD press releases because they announce the transfer of prisoners there first... they also announce all of the dead soldiers there.
It is very sobering to get those emails sometimes a few in a given day listing the young (they are always so young) men and women along with their age and hometown... day after day... week after week.
Hope this finds you doing well... we met regarding the Jane Doe case.
March 20, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Candace, nice to see you here. And very moved by your comments.
Especially good to hear from you as I'm planning to be in touch about Jane Doe--!
March 20, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi EJ.
I'm actually a student at Brandeis who was involved in the publicity and somewhat involved in the planning and execution of the Vigil/Rally/Protest yesterday.
Thank you for your kind words. I have passed them on to the other (and main) organizers of the proceedings yesterday. I'm glad you found value in what we've worked at.
March 20, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink