Thursday, July 26, 2007

A matter of honour

The war dead from the Iraq coalition forces continues to rise. Twenty soldiers sent to Iraq from Fort Lewis in Washington State were killed in May. This was a new monthly high. There are now moves there to change how the dead are honoured and remembered. Rather than holding services as casualties (I think that's the US euphemism for "deaths") occur, a once-a-month collective service may be held instead. Strange, you might have thought that they would think more about the number of people they were putting in harm's way, rather than working out how to cut down the time it takes to arrange/hold the services. Or maybe it's not about the logistics at all. Or maybe it's a bit like not showing photographs of plane-loads of coffins arriving home. It's easier to make out there are not so many "casualties" if you don't have individual services.

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