This past month, another six Canadian troops were killed in southern Afghanistan, their armored vehicle blown up by Taliban insurgents just outside Kandahar city. The six soldiers who perished; Cpl. Jordan Anderson, Cpl. Cole Bartsch, Master Cpl. Colin Bason, Capt. Matthew Johnathan Dawe, Capt. Jefferson Francis, and Pte. Lane Watkins brought Canada's total deaths in the country to 66 since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The vast majority of these, 48, have been in the past two years, since Canadian forces left the safety of Kabul to assume a more active combat role in Afghanistan's hostile south.
As has been the case with each combat death sustained by Canadian troops, their faces and stories plastered the front pages of national and local newspapers and TV networks in the days after they perished. Their names echoed from car radios and in the coffee shops of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Though the frequency of such deaths has tragically been rising, the public acknowledgement of these fatalities in front page stories, family TV interviews, and all too familiar shots of flag draped coffins, keeps them in our consciousness. Unfortunately it has been a long time since I recall seeing the same in the United States.
Years from now, historians will look back at the Iraq war, attempting to pinpoint the moment when failure was conclusive. Candidates for this tipping point will likely be the dismantling of the Iraqi army, the bomb which destroyed the Imam Ali Mosque, or even the botched execution and leaked video of Saddam Hussein's hanging. Militarily and strategically significant though these events were, I believe the Iraq war was lost for good when America pushed the sacrifices of its troops into the background.
Notice of casualties in the American media have become so commonplace they are almost forgotten. Television news might include them at the end of the broadcast, briefly, in silence, without commentary. They are no more than photos. We do not know when they died, or how, or with whom, or under what circumstances. The barest of information is given, and then the screen fades to black. The New York Times' "Names of the Dead", which has dutifully published over 3,618 names of those killed in Iraq, does so with the barest of information. Name, hometown, rank, unit and company.
Here in Canada our situation is admittedly different. Our military is tiny compared to the US, we field less soldiers in Afghanistan than all the casualties Americans have taken in Iraq alone. Since the Korean War we have avoided combat in favor of peacekeeping, only now coming to grips with the awful cost of war. Perhaps it is our naivety to grieve so publicly for each soldier, or perhaps the small numbers are more manageable. Perhaps in three years we will move the names of our dead from the front page to A6. I hope not.
I remember distinctly the death of CIA operative Johnny "Mike" Spann, the first US combat casualty in this -the "War on Terror"- who was killed during a prison uprising in Mazar-i-Sharif on November 28th, 2001. CNN and the networks filled their screens with his face, his life story, the words of family and friends, and political leaders offering their condolences. I can still picture Spann's grizzled beard, his black body armor, the rifle resting easily on his forearms as he posed with the Afghan mountains in the background of his last photo alive. He was real because he was the first, but with each subsequent death, interest in the person behind the statistic faded. It surged only at grim milestones...you'll be remembered briefly if you happen to be the tidy 100th or 500th or 3000th death in this war, but not # 3618.
One of five casualties from July 19th was listed as: BARNES, Nathan S., 23, Sgt., Army; American Fork, Utah; 10th Mountain Division.
Who was Nathan Barnes beyond that. What high school did he go to in American Fork? Was he married? Did he have kids? How many? What was his nickname and favorite band? What do we know about him, other than that he died at twenty-three years old in Iraq?
Nothing. He is just a name. A faceless name to add to a memorial to be built one day when enough time has passed that the war is no longer real and pressing but a memory... a distant, painful memory of history. He is a grim addition to a statistic that hangs over a government that discourages photographers from taking pictures of flag draped coffins, and haunts the American public like a looming shadow. For all the talk of sacrifice, it is tragic that those who have given the most are afforded 1/100th the space of a distant Presidential campaign or the lurid exploits of reality TV personalities.
Remember each death as if it were the first. See their faces, read their stories, and listen to those who loved them. Let the obituaries of your dead women and men in uniform be a stark daily reminder of the price the United States has paid in Iraq. Yes, seeing the photos of coffins and headshots each morning will feel like salt in an open wound, but hopefully you will remember that pain, and some of those names, the next time war drums come beating.