Photo: Joao Silva/NYT
I’ve never been in the armed forces and I don’t plan on doing so [the enlistment age was recently raised to 42]. I have no idea how things are normally done under “normal” situations of war, but this war we’re in over there just feels wrong and I don’t think I have to be a seasoned soldier to feel that way. I think torture and espionage happens everyday and in every war, but the way this administration has gone about handling just about everything is the coarse salt constantly rubbed into the gaping hole of a wound we have on the face of our nation.
Reading this NY Times article about how our dead soldiers are airlifted out in body bags under the cover of darkness just got to me. I understand that in this instance, the area where Sgt. Terry Michael Lisk, 26, of Zion, IL, was killed is an intense area where air traffic is limited to the cover of darkness. But I still get angry over it. Angry that Sgt. Lisk died. Angry that the tears must be shed in the dark. Angry that more like Sgt. Lisk will die. Angry that the tears were shed in silence.
Of note in the photo above [click on it for a larger version hosted on NYT’s servers]: you can actually see the body bag. And it is partially open so you can see Sgt. Lisk’s 26-year-old face. Eyes closed. Head slightly tilted to his right, probably jostled a bit as they placed his lifeless body on the cart as his fellow soldiers, taking on the role of pallbearers, paid their last respects awaiting the transport helicopter. You don’t see too many of these kind of shots out there. I’m glad it’s there. We need to be reminded of the real costs of the war: our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors, friends, teachers, drinking buddies and everyone else sacrificing it all – for what? There are too many feelings the photo above brings up for me to discuss coherently. How does it make you feel?
America has lost well over 2,500 soldiers now. There is no official count for the Iraqis, some estimates put the number well over 150,000.
***CORRECTION
That is not a body bag. It’s a wounded soldier saluting Sgt. Lisk. But the emotions brought up by the photo still ring true.
Albert,
Are you sure this is a body bag? Because if you look closely at the picture, the soldier on the cart is saluting with his right arm. I double checked this by blowing the picture up, and sure enough, his right hand is at his right temple. Unless fallen soldiers are posed this way, which is not anything I’ve heard of before.
Chroist I’m wrong. I should read the caption
How in the hell did I miss that.
But the emotions brought up by the image still ring true.
It would have to be quietly into the night because to do otherwise would show the pro-war policy to be the destructive farce that it truly is. Previous attempts to show photos of coffins met with protest. I mean, we wouldn’t want the general public to actually see what the policies of their elected officials have caused. No, certainly not.
Sorry Albert, you’re right, it is an emotional thing.
This photo still doesn’t show a coffin, but I agree with the emotion that it evokes. Especially the wounded soldier on the cart, being there to salute a comrade for the last time.
–for what?
“our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors, friends, teachers, drinking buddies and everyone else sacrificing it all – for what?”
Too easy:
so that Bush’s corrupt and self-serving policies could advance under the cloud of fear and doubt and cover of what Americans repeat as though an incantation, though don’t take much time to grasp the import of, “the fog of war”.
So that expressions such as “Support our troops!” can remain forceful tools of mass manipulation and those who yield to them can go on undisturbed about their daily business.
so that numerous corporations can reap fantastic profits in a not-to-be-believed opportunity for vast corruption and profiteering.
BUT most all, above all other reasons, this: so that a new paradigm of foreign bogeyman, a new and vastly more useful notion to replace the now defunct “menace of worldwide Communism” can take form and install itself in the delulded imaginations of millions of Americans–people who, out of respect for and fear about that new nebulous menace, shall dutifully roll over for the current administration and those which follow, allowing themselves to be mercilessly fleeced of every last vestige of freedom and political self-respect.
That’s what these people–both Americans and Iraqis, and others like them to come–that’s what they’re dying for.
For that.
The Iraq and Vietnam Occupations are different. In Vietnam the wounded and dead grunts were quickly choptered out, never to be heard from again. In Iraq, they have farewell ceremonies. When the troops mutinied in Vietnam it was silent and unreported. When the Iraq Troopers mutiny, all hell will break loose.