next year

we have to add ten more to our remembrances (if only it was going to be ten more, BUT, it isn't going to be, is it?)

kidnappings, deaths, torturing. and we think this is ok? do we think we have a chance to mend what we cut open? the longer we stay, the more pain we cause. both to families HERE and to families THERE

bring our men and women home NOW


10 American Soldiers Killed in Iraq
Memorial Day Casualties Make May Deadliest Month for U.S. in 21/2 Years


By John Ward Anderson Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, May 29 -- The U.S. military announced Tuesday that 10 American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Memorial Day, making May the deadliest month for U.S. troops in 2 1/2 years, as insurgents continued attacks on government and civilian targets.
Gunmen dressed in police uniforms staged a well-coordinated kidnapping at Iraq's Finance Ministry and abducted five Britons. Two vehicle bombings in Baghdad killed at least 44 people and injured 74. And the bodies of 32 men -- all shot and tortured, some handcuffed and blindfolded -- were found in two locations north and south of the capital on Tuesday, a senior Iraqi security official said............

this is SO right on - Help the bombardier!

it hurts

Not to See the Fallen Is No Favor

By DAVID CARR

On this Memorial Day, thousands of United States men and women are engaged in untold acts of bravery and drudgery on behalf of what our leaders have defined as vital American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But even as the flags wave to honor soldiers past, much of the current campaigns go on without notice, because while troop numbers are surging, the media that cover them are leaking away, worn out by the danger and expense of covering a war that refuses to end.
Many of the journalists who are in Iraq have been backed into fortified corners, rarely venturing out to see what soldiers confront. And the remaining journalists who are embedded with the troops in Iraq — the number dropped to 92 in May from 126 in April — are risking more and more for less and less.
Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited..........

the article even mentions joseph heller (you can't go wrong with that!)

Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: Sure. Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat isn't really crazy, so I can't ground him. Yossarian: Ok, let me see if I've got this straight. In order to be grounded, I've got to be crazy. And I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I'm not crazy anymore, and I have to keep flying. Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: You got it, that's Catch-22. Yossarian: Whoo... That's some catch, that Catch-22. Dr. 'Doc' Daneeka: It's the best there is.