The Sunday Night Massacre

[frogcycle]

The report yesterday afternoon about "Twelve more soldiers killed in Iraq" was a replay of something that has happened on several weekends.

The casualties occur almost daily. We've been running at a little over 4/day for a while now. During the week, there is rarely any reportage of "numbers killed today" unless there is a copter crash or really big number.

The DoD releases come out daily, but I think they tend to accumulate on the weekends. Some stringer at AP gets them all at once and writes a headline, and it is all over the place in minutes. I am glad that the six deaths in one incident were publicized. But there were eight deaths on Thursday that went unmentioned, except to be included in the total month-to-date.

The count for yesterday is now up to ten, plus one UK. But when the "Twelve more" headline was flying around it was actually nine for Sunday and three for Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, I agonize over each one. It justs irritates me that only if there is a "spectacular" number, or, worse yet, someone misinterpreting 2-3 days worth of data does it get publicized. They don't CARE about those six soldiers whose various body parts were hauled away in two pickup trucks, to be sorted out into six approximate sets by graves registration. They just think, oh, I can get a story run with this!

I'll have names and pictures on my website when available, and they'll look like nice kids, some probably with little kids of their own, wives widowed after a year or two of marriage, and I'll try not to think of the horror that is inside those flag draped coffins that the press won't even show.

I am thinking of putting up a flagpole in my yard so I can fly a flag at half staff, since the government does not see fit to do so.