by James Glaser
June 30, 2003

How would you feel if your son was killed in Iraq and your government refused to count him as a causality of the war? Let us say your son and his unit were heading down a road at high speed, trying to get to where some other American troops were under attack and their vehicle flips over because of bad roads and all are killed.

According to the way Washington counts battle deaths in Iraq, your son died in an unfortunate accident and is not counted as dying in combat for his nation. You see, it sounds better if President Bush can say that only 25 Americans have lost their lives since he said the war was over on that flight deck thirty miles off our coast.

In reports from Washington and in every major newspaper the smaller number of combat deaths is reported as the amount of Americans killed in Iraq since the end of the hostilities, even though the real number is more than twice as high.

With 25 deaths that is only one every two and a half days, but if they were honest, they would tell us the real number. Sixty five Americans have lost their lives since May 1st when we started counting Post War deaths and that is over one per day. Washington wants to keep these numbers as low as possible, otherwise Americans might stop supporting our continued occupation of Iraq.

To the parents, wives, and children of the forty American Soldiers and Marines that have died in non-combat accidents, their deaths are just as devastating as their loved one getting a bullet in the head. It is such a slap in the face to these family members to not have their loss counted.

In every war, many members of our armed services are killed in accidents and by disease picked up in foreign lands, but in the past we always counted them as a causality of war. Many of those listed on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington died from accidents in the war zone and their sacrifice is counted right along with those that were killed in combat.

When they give the number of those lost by us in the first gulf war (348) they list everyone that died, even though their were a large amount of "friendly fire" accidents. In past wars if you lost your life, no matter how, your sacrifice was counted.

Today, Washington is making deaths in the war zone political and they are putting spin on the numbers of Americans killed. Because of the lack of any compassion for the families of those killed and the political games this administration has used with all facts about this war, there are now different kinds of deaths for American troops.

Families know, Mothers know, Veterans know and every American that lost someone in the terrorist attack of September 11th knows that it doesn't matter how a loved one died, the loss is the same. Washington can play games with numbers and belittle the loss of many fine young Americans for political gain, but we know all of those that die in Iraq, died for their country.