Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 10:09 PM 11/17/03 -0700, Tim Atherton wrote: >Surely the American (and British) people also have a right to honour these >men and women, who have paid such a high cost on their behalf. For their >deaths to become merely a daily statistic - a number, just press release - >from CENTCOM: > >" >November 17, 2003 >Release Number: 03-11-23C > >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > >ONE SOLDIER KILLED IN IED ATTACK > >TIKRIT, Iraq One 4th Infantry Division soldier was killed when a convoy >struck an improvised explosive device south of Balad at about 7:50 a.m. on >November 17. > >The soldiers name is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification. > >The incident is under investigation." > > - surely that is a dishonour. Hiding the arrival of flag draped, honoured >coffins at Dover really is just that - hiding it. Turning that soldier into >a daily statistic both devalues their sacrifice and withholds from the >American people a small but basic and important visceral sense of what the >real, human cost of all this is. > >Again, I would add, that as far as I know, all the British troops killed in >action have been buried with full military honours, in quite public >ceremonies. Of the 9 I personally know something of the details, this was >wish of the families. ========================= Tim My comments are entirely directed at the US polity. I have few public comments to make on how things are done in -- what was that line of one of your Prime Ministers, Nevil Chamberlain, was it? -- "distant lands about which we know little". (Though I happen to know a British major serving in Iraq as I write this, and I suspect that I know at least two others who might be there, though I do not know.) However, no, the death of a soldier does not make his death a public event subject to a feeding frenzy on the part of the press. And the intention of the press in photographing these dead dudes is not to "honor" them but to make a cheap political statement by photographing their interment. Shame on the photographers and journalists who would do so! Marc msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html