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Does Bush Care About Our Fallen Soldiers?

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

By Ruth Lopez

Does President Bush care about our fallen military men and women?

He says he does, when he's posing in front of them. He says he does, when his poll numbers drop and he needs a quick boost. He says he does, when he meets with the families of British soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for this policy of lies and war making.

But the bodies of our soldiers, fallen in Iraq, are ushered back home under the cover of silence and censorship.

Our wounded brothers and sisters are flown back home in the middle of the night, where no camera can see the crutches, the stretchers, the soldiers coming back with fewer limbs and a life irrevocably changed, to be greeted by darkness and silence.

Contrast this with Italy, where the loss of 19 of their countrymen was greeted as a national tragedy. Their memorial service was held in St. Peter's, with 10,000 attending inside and the streets outside filled with over 250,000 mourners. The service was broadcast nationally, the country came to a halt. All to recognize and honor the loss of 19 of their countrymen.

Do we care for our fallen soldiers?

We have now lost over 400 of our own. President Bush says he cannot single out some to honor without honoring all, and so we honor none. And the toll of our losses continues to climb, each new death just another notch in the national psyche, until we are numb to the scale of tragedy inherent in each death.

In the service at St. Peter's, I watched as loved ones were allowed to come to the casket of their own loved one, to touch it, be next to it, mourning in the company of their country, honoring their loss.

I suspect that President Bush has been told by his cynical political advisors that we must not be allowed to see the steady drip, drip, drip of American lives cut short. Inevitably, they tell him, we will lose our taste for the glories of war if we are continually faced with the reality of death. So there will be no TV shots of bodies being unloaded, no national memorial services for who has died today, or this week. Not when we might have to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and next week, next month, next year.

Yesterday, disgusted by the ridiculous TV coverage of Michael Jackson's arrest, (did we really need the coverage of his car for hours?), I changed the channel to the Canadian news network. There I learned what the American media, too busy with Michael, hadn't bothered to tell us: that yet another American had died in Iraq. I do not know his name, or where he is from, or who now has a broken heart, knowing he will never return. But I know for a fact that his loss will not be recognized or honored nationally.

The truly disgusting part of it all is that we have accepted not acknowledging our growing losses, allowing ourselves to be distracted by Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson, while our loved ones trickle home in boxes, unnoticed and unhonored.

The president will not change his tactics and neither will the media will as long as we watch and play along. If a change is going to come, it is going to have to be from us. Because it is our children dying. Nobody in this administration has a child in Iraq and I'm willing to bet that the corporate owners of the media, who set the agenda for what is considered "news" don't have children serving in Iraq either. Our soldiers come from the families of the working class and the poor, not the president and the corporate bigwigs. So, if we are going to change the way we honor our fallen, it will have to come from us, the families and friends of those who are risking their lives. 

Or we can continue to do nothing. Let the caskets trickle home in the darkness. In a few decades we can build another black wall with names inscribed upon it and then we can gather together to do what we are not willing to do now.


A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY