A post from a week ago, that never got posted.

I find that out of respect for the dead, when I get to the part of news shows where they show the names, home states and ages of the American dead in Iraq, In Memoriam on This Week or the names at the end of The News Hour are examples, I have to take the time to read their names. Its a few seconds and I always hate it, but I read them out of respect.

Usually the names go by so fast I can't read all of the information. Sometimes I concentrate on the locations. Which state are these ... Where are these people from? Its strange but I get a positive feeling about my country when I see that the names are so distributed geographically. NY, California, Texas. I think in the Army, we really ARE one nation. The sacrifice is distributed all over.

I see a lot of Hispanic names. I see a lot of black faces.

The enemy treats us equally. They kill all of us.

Sometimes the names and faces are female. I suppose that its a greater sign of equal rights today ... More women soldiers are being killed. But I don't like it.

Lately I see that the ages of some of the soldiers are greater than my own. A week or so ago I saw that one soldier was 52. I see a lot of the faces of the dead in their 30's and 40's. These people are Dads and even Granddads. I feel, how sad for them. How wrong, that having spent their youth and made their lives, they are now being called to die at a time when they could begin taking it easy. Reaping the harvest of their life's work.

I think its wrong to get these grizzled old family men killed in a foreign country at their age.

Then the next face I see is some 19 year old kid.