Death Count

Recently I have been wondering how much people in the United States really care about the war that their men and women are fighting over in the Middle East. Sure we all think about it once or twice a year, on 9/11 and the war anniversary, but do we really pay attention to what is happening over there? Just recently the death toll for the United States soldiers has reached a high number of 4,000 lives. That is 4,000 families affected, thousands of friends impacted, and millions of Americans citizens concerned.

As the presidential election is nearing, I feel like I am constantly bombarded with speeches by the aspiring candidates and their stance on the war. There is no way that anyone can say that they enjoy being in the war, so really why is it that big of a deal? The one thing that differs between each of the candidates is their choice of when they will remove the troops from the Middle East. These are simply terrible lies. First of all these future presidents will not physically walk into Iraq and pull out each soldier individually. They don’t have the power to do so and their Congress would never be able to control it.

I wonder how much this talking gets to the Americans across the country. Don’t we realize that each day Americans are dying, all while fighting for us? When I read the statistic on reaching the big 4,000 American deaths, it came as a huge surprise to me. Yet I get completely annoyed hearing about the Iraqi government and their leaders, I would enjoy hearing more about the individuals who are fighting for me. These men and women are heroes and their achievements are hardly near prevalent.

The influences that the American citizens receive from our world news stations don’t always seem to be very colloquial either. I have not felt invited to participate in a Support the Troops project and I don’t believe that many people have. Though many of us support the people in the war, almost no one supports the war itself. I question how many lives we are going to filter through before something serious is done about ending the war. The number of deaths is only increasing and on this rate we will be down 100,000 citizens in just a few years. Something needs to be fixed.

I feel like I hear more about pointless celebrities than I do about the war our country is fighting in. Of course the war is much more important, but then why do we still hear only about Jessica Simpson and her new boyfriend? Living in a controversial world, we still argue on entering the war in the first place. However, that does not make the situation completely wrong. Now that is has started and we have lost so many lives, we can not back out from it, we must now support the troops even more. I would like to try doing my part better in the future. I have realized that the war will be happening for many more years and that there is simply nothing left to do but work hard on getting us out of it quick.