In case we all forgot, Americans are still dying in Iraq

Jimmy Breslin

August 6, 2006

By the way, there are many American soldiers fighting in the Middle East.

In case you haven't noticed, they get killed. A lot of them get killed.

I was watching the endless television coverage of Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon killing women and children and then picking up the papers to read almost exclusively of the same thing. I found no picture on television and almost no mention in newspapers of Americans dying.

The dead babies of Lebanon and those dismembered by rockets in Israel are considered to be glorious distractions that allow our government to stroll the hallways that appear to have no blood on the floors.

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I made a call to the Defense Department: "How are our soldiers doing lately?"

"We've had a bad month," the man responded.

"How bad?"

"Stay there and you'll see."

There now came faxes detailing American soldiers who died in Iraq since July 1. There have been 50 who died since then.

We list below who they are and where they are from, and the statistic that causes all to retch: the age.

We cannot list the entire number of dead in Iraq, for 2,583 Americans have been lost so far. And counting every day.

There also have been 19,270 wounded, with such injuries as legs blown off, young men with shattered backs being placed in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives, genitals lost, brains numbed by flying ball bearings, faces left in half by flames.

The television and newspaper coverage of this has been weak, lazy, fearful. What there is of it, you watch and read with clenched teeth.

Once, on HBO, they showed a young soldier on the table and the whine of a saw sounded as it went through the bone of his leg being amputated. This should be on day and night.

The obligation of reporting is to tell and tell and tell of the deaths and great injuries of young Americans sent to die by old draft dodgers in Washington.

How old was the kid on the table? What could he be? Twenty-two?

He stayed the course in Iraq.

What did it get him? He loses a leg.

Just as he was in his great college appearances, Bush is a cheerleader for any war that can be fought by somebody else's kids.

"I grieve for the children of Beirut."