In another day or so, after the family of the latest American military casualty has had a moment to collect itself (however briefly) the name of the dead American will be made public.
We will never know the names of the dead Iraqis.
In a farmhouse in Kansas, or an apartment in the Bronx, or a suburban home in Southern California or Texas, a mother or father or wife will take a treasured photo off the wall and maybe hold it up for a local television news crew or newspaper reporter. If you live in a place where the local television news is really local, and has a heart, you may have seen some of these images on your television on the evening news: the numbed fingers running over the glass frame, above the face of a stalwart in uniform, in front of a flag, looking terribly stern and brave for someone just 19 years old.
Numbed hands must also close the eyes of dead mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and children in Iraq. Perhaps treasured photos there are also taken from walls and held tight, or draped in black. We don’t see these images; but they happen just the same.
Along a rural road in Montana or Pennsylvania or Ohio, local Boy Scouts or fire departments may line the streets with flags -- perhaps for miles. The people who live in the community where the dead soldier or sailor or Marine or airman or National Guardsman grew up may stand silently between these flags, some with hands over their hearts, the older military men saluting, as the hearse bearing the crisply flag-draped coffin is driven past.
There have been hundreds -- thousands? -- of such scenes over the past five years.
Mourning comes much sooner is Iraq; it is customary to begin the burial process for Muslims within 24 hours of death. When dozens or even hundreds are blown to bits by car bombs, though, this likely will not happen. Instead, frightened family members sometimes must turn back the folds of dozens of white sheets, searching for a familiar face, a familiar hand, a familiar foot. Some Muslim Iraqis, defying the religious prohibition against tattoos, have had themselves marked with needled ink -- so that, in the event of their kidnapping or death, their families would have a way to identify them.
Along with the "grim milestone" of 4,000 confirmed American deaths this weekend came the predictable coverage. At least, I thought, it will move this hideous spectacle back onto the front page, where, of course, it should have been every day in the five years since this most unnecessary of wars, this most hideous of breaches of American tradition, was launched.
This morning’s New York Times had a two-page inside spread of Faces of the Dead. Each face was smaller than the fingernail on my smallest finger -- and my hands themselves are small. Treasured photos, lovingly removed from walls and scrapbooks, reduced to the size of a 16th of a postage stamp. There were no names; there were no stories.
There were no photos of the dead Iraqis.
Yet, as I ran my fingers over the photos, so many of them were so familiar.
I saw photos of:
Sgt. Phillip R. Anderson, 28, of Everett, Washington
Sgt. Anderson's sister sent me this photograph last week, along with a note thanking the IGTNT team and all the members of this community for reminding her family that they were not alone.
Pfc. Danny L. Kimme, 27, of Fisher, Illinois
I've never forgotten what one of his friends said about him: "Danny wasn't always the guy who lived in an abundance of stuff that you could hold in your hand or keep in your pocket, that guy carried more heart in him than any of our friends carry or I carry and I'll always be proud to call him my friend."
Cpl. Jason T. Lee, 26, of Fruitport, Michigan
"He was very much a free spirit," said Kerri Jacobs, who taught Spanish to Lee in 1997-98.
Capt. David A. Boris, 30, of Pennsylvania
This is what Capt. Boris‘s mother-in-law said: "If we could have handpicked a husband for our daughter, he would have been it."
Sgt. Jason M. Lantieri, 25, of Killingworth, Connecticut
The knock on the door, his mother said, was: "Earth-shattering. Every mother's nightmare."
Spc. Edward L. Brooks, 25, of Dayton, Ohio
His high school ROTC officer said: "Edward was one of those gems."
They were all gems.
In her beautiful IGTNT diary tonight, greenies quoted Rosemary Palmer, mother of Marine Lance Corporal Augie Schroeder, who was killed in Iraq on August 3rd, 2005. Mrs. Palmer had been interviewed by NPR on the occasion of the announcement of the 4,000th death of an American in Iraq. This is what she said:
"For every military family, the only number that matters is one."
Where death in war is the subject, the only number, for any family, American or Iraqi, is one. Each "one" is a grim milestone for someone.
Their lives mattered. All of them.
May we please do everything we can to bring this miserable war to an end.
