It ain't Vietnam

What do you mean by notice, dys?

just watching the news tonight and it seems to me that the daily "another G.I. dead" just doesnt make the news anymore, self serving I suppose but I surely remember when I came home the dead and the wounded were just becoming more numbers and I find it sad. we are, after all, talking about real human beings and that seems to get lost quite easily. (perhaps I am too sensitive to the issue as I spent the day shopping for a cane)

I guess it's just where you are tuned into. The radio station I listen to everyday has ABC news breaks, they always, without fail, lead with US casualties and/or injuries. That and every interview with a Dem candidate, they always give the to date total.

dys,

I noticed a drop off after the media offensive led by the administration to try to get media outlets to showcase more of the positive.

And I predicted in one of my prediction threads that the casualties would get less play (unless they started increasing).

They are decreasing (somewhat, the statistical sampling is too small).

Combined with the capture of Saddam I think the admin just won the media battle.

Thing is, as much as I disliked the war I long throught that insofar as the big picture is concerned the US casualties were getting more play than in the past.

It's a cold way to think about it but fbaezer's post about deaths and distance is a very very interesting bit of inside information (he lists how many deaths are needed for his old newspaper to run a story and where, he also goes into nationality etc).

Anywho, I think all dead get short shrift in life. They usually manage to only touch a few, as there so much death that we get numb.

But at least the GIs are getting hundreds of times the attention that the dead Iraqi civilians are getting. That has gotten very little play.

I know what you mean dys. I followed the war in Vieitnam and a few of my friends lost their husbands there. When the news media mentions that another GI has died in Iraq, it becomes very superficial to us, and because we are not there, we don't see the full impact of it. As craven said, "there so much death that we get numb."
We all need to be thankful that they are fighting in our behalf wether you believe in this war or not.

I think it may get a little more, here. Sigh. So far, we have only lost reporters. With more than 800 people still there - mainly in specialist roles - it will be interesting to see how we react if they start being killed.

They are not fighting on MY behalf, Colorbook! Though I wish them no ill.

If the Iraqis are grateful, though, so am I.

I can omit that part for anyone who may be offended by it.

I rather think this is (solely in regard to casualties and death) reminiscent of Vietnam in 1965. There hadn't yet been sufficient death and heartache for it to have touched the most of us. Right now, a few hundred deaths hasn't spread the grief widely enough to be felt in the general public, so that it sinks beneath the horizon of most people's understanding as "old news."

Let us hope, in fact, that there is never sufficient slaughter to touch everyone the way the Vietnam war eventually did.

Sorry to hear that, dys. Arthritis?

you all know its interesting to me but inspite of all the politics of this and that, I have but a minor flesh wound to deal with not really that big a deal, but I have been treated kindly enough with friends here on a2k like roger and edgar and sofia and JLN and others I fail to mention that I feel I have a community of support I never had when I returned from Nam. I think of all as friends I never had in those days and I am glad. Let us not forget those coming home and their families.

I so much agree, Dys.

Yes, I agree too.

dys,

You have more friends than you know. I love the part you play here.