Gratitude Monday: The faces of war

You know, the thing about Memorial Day—when we’re meant to pause and give thought to those who have served and sacrificed in our armed services—is that you’re never going to run out of things to write about. Because we’re never going to run out of wars.

We are right now engaged in the longest-running war in our history. And it doesn’t really seem like “war”, unless you’re wearing cammies, or are close to someone who does. Because we non-uniformed personnel almost never cross its path. News outlets cover Kardashians more than they do events in Afghanistan or Iraq.

One exception is the Washington Post, which has, since the first boots hit the ground, periodically printed photos of the men and women who have been killed in those foreign fields. Whenever enough fallen have accrued to fill two broadsheet pages, the Post gives them to us, so we have names and faces to go with whatever statistics might filter out to us from governments that would rather we didn’t really know the cost.

And we have the names and faces even if we’d really rather not think about the cost.

As of this writing, the butcher’s bill stands at 6,805. But we have miles to go.

You can go to WaPo’s page—well, 96 of them—showing the serried ranks of men and women from all services, who left home in uniform and returned in uniform military coffins. The Post gives each person’s name, branch, rank and home town, as well as date and circumstances of his or her death.

It is Gratitude Monday, and it is Memorial Day. I am grateful for our uniformed services, and I am grateful for the Post reminding us of the lives contained within those uniforms.