On the evening news tonight I hear that the number of US souls lost in Iraq is one thousand one hundred and ninety eight. Two more… two more American service people and the death toll reaches two-thousand. I am not going to go on about what I think of the war and the president that put us… the US… there. No. Instead I am going to talk about what I fear that the media will do and what they will say when that number is reached. How will they act when that macabre “lottery” number comes up? Will it be the typical press field day as they all struggle and compete over the lifeless corpse for little exclusives? Will they set that particular person apart from the one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine who were unlucky enough to fall before them and unfortunate enough to just get “some number” that doesn’t warrant special attention? Will they hound his or her parents, spouse, children, relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, neighbors, and the barber that that gave them their first haircut? Will they pay extra special attention to this particular soldier simply based on a cold, round number, bad timing and being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Will they make of number two thousand a special hero, a symbol, a rallying point to continue the war or on the other hand to end it? In making it so big will they belittle it? I hope that the media treats it at least with dignity and respect. I hope that they recognize all of the fallen and that they realize that these soldiers are not just numbers and that the ones to have fallen on the “special” numbers – 100, 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 – are no more or less special than those who have fallen around them. They are all Americans and they are all special.
Regardless of whether you support the war or not, I know that you do not want to see the death rate climb. None of us want to see these numbers climb. This may surprise you, but I do not want to know who number two thousand is. Not because I don’t respect their sacrifice and their loss, but because I would rather they be alive and that they not be a number at all. I would rather that they come home to loved ones, family and friends. That they come home to another class reunion, a neighbor’s cookout, and for another haircut from that old barber.
Bring them home. Bring them all home before more become mere numbers.