You look at the names; they are all so young. Lives cut short - men who have in the prosaic phrase "given their all", and then we think for a moment what that phrase actually means. All. Everything they had and everything they might have had is gone.

They are unsullied, now, by the crimes of our world. Free in the absolute sense, we hope also that they agree to their sacrifice and have gone to a better place - some place reserved for those who sacrifice everything for others. Our task is to look upon their names, see their faces and never, ever forget that behind the cold statistic of "300 dead" are flesh and blood men who are no more in this world.

We who have supported this war bear the full guilt of their deaths. It was at our behest they went; in the service of our chosen policy these men have died - and sometimes died quite horrible deaths; shot, burned, dismembered; sometimes taking some time to die. It is our duty to see this thing through, to ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain - our task now to build a better world; one, perhaps, where young men don't have to go thousands of miles from home to kill and be killed.

I have to be honest and admit when I see these pictures of those that have fallen I do ask why.
And then a whisper so soft comes to my ear.

They are men of honor, they have Mothers. I am a Mother of three grown sons. How could I endure this loss, this pain.

I think about Katherine that writes in your log Dean, and I know she has a son over there in Iraq. She writes with so much compassion for our troops over there, and I find myself clinging to her every word. One day she BOLDLY told us, what Chief Wiggles was doing was RIGHT! Why? BECAUSE HER SON SAID SO THAT'S WHY!

When I hear what I call garbage on television or the print media about how going to Iraq was wrong, it just makes me MAD. Our men and women in service and their families at home do not deserve that. Especially the little children of our servicemen that are in Iraq and Afganastan. Well for goodness sakes, how do those children feel with their mothers and fathers over there?

Dean was right yesterday when he said we, America, needed in essence to come together. The forefront. He got some flack. I bet I will too. But let me say something to finish where I started about those that have fallen and the fact that I am a mother of three grown sons, oh, and three grandsons, so show a little respect.

Those men and women that went to Iraq and Afganastan did so for US. Their reasons were many. They signed up under the umbrella of the United States Military. Our President went to Congress, went to the United Nations and we all know the rest.

I looked at pictures of those that have gone on. I got a deep lump in my throat and I Do know what it is like to lose a son. I have a son in heaven. I had a baby son ripped out of my arms when I was only three months into being fifteen years old. Twenty years later, on my own, through years of anguish, and prayer, I found the son that was ripped from my arms. This is why I can feel the pain of those families that have lost their loved ones.

I don't know why those soldiers died so young. I don't know why I have a son in heaven.
I couldn't understand when I was barely fifteen why my child ripped from my arms.
I did not lose faith and I did not blame others, I just lit a candle in my heart for twenty years.
It was the era, it was the times and one day, I found the son and brought him a Teddy Bear and He brought me a Single Red Rose.

Thank you for this post Dean. It brings forth many thoughts in my heart. I do know in time the situation will get better in Iraq. I am on the side that we did go for the right reasons.
... I also think all those fallen brave faces are with my , Michael Harlen Renick that died and went to heaven so long ago. I just know they are all in heaven together..

Robert Prather has a link to a touching final email from the daughter of CSM James Blankenbecler two days after his death.

http://www.news-portal.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5511

I had only looked at a half dozen or so before the lump swelled in my throat and my eyes became teared. The personal story of each one, their names and pictures, addresses, military unit, where they died and their age, I didn't want to see this clearly. I've been avoiding it much of the time since the war began in March. The list breaks down the protection of my objective distance and gets to the shared grief, the mourning of their loved ones right in my face. I see their too short lives now gone with no future. I picture them as the small children they once were. I wonder about their hopes and dreams, the fun they had, the friends and family they leave behind.

We can never know the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sisters and brothers and the children left behind. With all my heart I want to see the end of the death and suffering war brings...erased from the earth. The list tells the storey of war. War can never be an abstract event a half-world away.
It has now struck very close to home.

"We who have supported this war bear the full guilt of their deaths."

You got that right.

And those of you who opposed the war bear the full guilt of the deaths of all the Iraqi people Saddam slaughtered while you forced us to appease the tosspots at the UN.

Clown.