Heather Van Hull '10
Contributing Writer
This past Wednesday morning, while scanning the Boston Globe during a slow period in Cazenove's dishroom, I came across the headline, "12 Soldiers Killed in Rocket Explosion in Iraq." March 19 was a week away, on the dot. To most people, March 19 is the day they wake up from hangovers induced by a night of heavy drinking on St. Patty's Day two days ago. However, to a few thousand families in the United States and about a hundred thousand families in Iraq, March 19 is a day that will "live in infamy."
Five years ago on March 19, President Bush, with the approval of Congress, decided to carry on Daddy's quest for oil and invaded Iraq. Five years is a long time in the history of wars. World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (late 1939- mid 1945) were both waged in five years.
Although the death toll for the Iraq War is nowhere as high as for both world wars, even a mathematically-challenged English major can see that the small number of deaths reported each day add up. MSNBC reports American casualties to total 3,987 since the beginning of the war, with 3,848 of these deaths occurring since "Mission Accomplished" in May 2003 and 3,526 since Saddam's capture in December 2003.
These figures do not include the number of wounded, which "officially" total 29,320. In turn, this figure only includes the troops who have suffered noticeable physical wounds. Not included in the statistics are those suffering from mental illnesses inflicted by wartime experiences. An average of 1 in 8 returning soldiers suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a severe type of anxiety disorder ("1 in 8 returning soldiers suffers from PTSD. But less than half with problems seek help, report finds," Associated Press, 6/30/2004).
This figure is understandable since many soldiers have served three, four, or even five tours of duty with little training prior to their first departure and little time at home in between tours. Many people who have died during duty or suffer from PTSD or serious wounds are under 30 years of age with families for whom they can no longer provide.
However, our suffering is nowhere near as appalling as that of the Iraqi citizens, whose death toll rests at 82,109. This figure is at the low end of the range offered for approximate civilian deaths because no one knows for certain how many civilians have died. The U.S. Army doesn't keep official records on civilian deaths. Is this a war on terrorism or a war on Iraqi civilians?
While protesting Darfur and other blatant acts of genocide, we forget our own country is massacring innocent people in Iraq.
Despite the severity of the war and its disastrous effects on thousands of people, the Iraq war is often forgotten.
For me, however, the war is constantly on my mind. Every four or five days during the summer, I would drive the backroads of Ohio through numerous small towns to my internship on a wildlife preserve in the middle of what had been coal country up to a few years ago. Every time I drove down there I would pass through a town that had pictures posted on their courthouse window of the soldiers from that county who had died in Iraq. From this one small county, which has a population smaller than that of the Boston area, at least 45 soldiers had died.
People may argue that these people chose to go into the army of their own free will since there is no draft. But for some people, joining the National Guard or the Army, which are now taking any American with a beating pulse, is the only way to financially support their families. Twenty nine of Ohio's 88 counties are classified as part of Appalachia, the poorest region of the United States. Needless to say, there are not many jobs, even fast-food jobs, available to these people. To them, joining the military means getting a paycheck with which they can purchase their family's next meal.
The army knows this, and aggressively seeks recruits in many small Ohio towns, including the local high schools.
Five years and three trillion dollars later (the only war more expensive was WWII), the U.S. Army is still in Iraq and American and Iraqi deaths keep on piling up. Now more than ever, we, as a united country, need to work on pulling troops out of Iraq as soon and as smoothly as possible.