Time Magazine recently noted some somber news on this occasion:
Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.
In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3 1/2 months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.
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2 comments:
Allegedly, Memorial Day is a holiday brought about by a northerner in response to the Southern tradition of Confederate Memorial Day.
In the spirit of acknowledging the dead on both sides of the war, we should also honor fallen Iraqis, both military and civilian, who have fallen because of this needless war. Who knows how many dead there have been in Iraq and Afghanistan? I do know their numbered dead is much larger than ours. They also deserve to be honored today.
Good point. In 2004, the British medical journal Lancet estimated there were 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. Nobody really knows how many.
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