Remember the Fallen

The war in the Middle East continues and continues. Our men and women still come home in flag-draped boxes. The latest figures we have of our troops killed (June 5, 2011) In Iraq and Afghanistan are 6,026. As our longest war rages on we must not forget those who have died and those that are serving for us while we go on with our lives. Elizabeth Warren pointed out last night on a television program the numbers of foreclosures of families who serve in this war. While they serve their country—banks are taking their homes. This is madness. Meanwhile our politicians play silly posturing games in Washington. The Washington Post has a web site of the faces of the fallen. You may want to read this moving web site.

You also might want to read Sebastian Junger’s splendid editorial piece in last Sunday’s New York Times. He asks “Why Would Anyone Miss War?” Junger is no wild-eyed liberal. He spent five months with a platoon of our troops with US 2nd Battalion in the Koregal Valley of Afghanistan. Though he is a writer, he was allowed to live as a soldier for this time. He tells that story in his book, War. He also filmed much of that five-month time showing footage of war in a film, “Restropo.” He writes about the real horrors of war—not only our casualties—but the casualties we have inflicted on innocents simply because this is the way war is. I keep remembering the English soldier, Siegfried Sassoon and his splendid poem that was written about peace during the First World War.

“Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill’d with such delight
As prison’d birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.


Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away. . .O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will
never be done.”

Let us remember the fallen.