I'm drowning in summer trip and kids' recreation planning, dating (only one guy, but my schedule is kind of busy), birthday celebrations (yup, I'm older), sick TigerGrrl (bad fever, finally gone), big-work-project finishing, skating lessons, karate lessons, being a guinea pig in an interesting medical study, and the general mayhem of none-too-flush single parent life. Yet for the last two days, I've been clicking through this interactive page: the New York Times' Faces of the Dead (the dead in both Afghanistan and Iraq). For some reason, I feel compelled to look at the face of each person and read that person's name, age, and hometown.
I have accomplished nothing by looking at each service-member's face and limited identifying information, but still look. I'm more than three-quarters through the page, somewhere in those who died in 2008. I can't imagine this much heartbreak. If each person has two people who loved and now miss him or her, it's unbearable. I've got nothing, here. Any suggestions welcome.
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9 comments:
I disagree that you have accomplished nothing by looking at their faces. You are one more person that will remember, which is a gift to their memory and the people who love them.
Even when their names, faces, ages and hometowns become a blur, they are remembered. And that is something.
Jenn put it beautifully. I, too study the faces of our war dead. So many of them are so young!
I don't remember newspapers posting pictures of Vietnam dead during those dreadful years. I'm glad they're doing it now. All of us need to be reminded that the numbers represent real people who once loved, hated, laughed and cried.
Jenn: I actually think of it as a duty or obligation. I need to look at their mostly heartbreakingly young faces.
DCPeg: Yes. I think it's important, whether one originally supported the war or whether one currently supports it, to know the faces of those who die in our names.
Happy belated Birthday!
Thanks Mr. Cat. At this point, I'm not counting. But still, all good.
Mine was about 7 or so weeks ago. I still haven't bought myself anything much to celebrate...
Although it's not just another day, it lost its special factor for me a few years back.
Well, Happy Birthday, Mr. Cat! I should have remembered that you are a late Spring baby too. And yes, I like to celebrate -- I had a lovely dinner with SNV and Innana -- but really, at 49 I can't get too excited. Next year, I guess I have to throw a big shindig.
That interactive thing you mentioned was interesting. But the place where the soldiers died is called a "theater". Really? Like's it a play and they are just actors?
Ms.Andrea: They've been using that euphemism for a while; it wasn't invented for this war. But yes, it's a eupemism. "Field of battle" would be better. Or "place of death."
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