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thedrifter
01-17-07, 07:33 AM
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Ready for duty
Jenny Sokol
Columnist
The Orange County Register
bjs92@adelphia.net

"This could be expensive in terms of human life," the news pundit quipped the morning after President Bush informed the nation of an imminent troop surge in Iraq.

To many Americans, expensive means 3,000 lives. To some, it means $300 billion.

Though the toll of war is incalculable, scholars feel compelled to try. Duke University recently concluded that between 4.3 million and 6.5 million Americans know someone killed or wounded in Iraq.

MSNBC reported that more than 73,000 troops have post-traumatic stress disorder, drug dependency or depression.

Three thousand Iraqis die each month. More than 20,000 American troops have been wounded. These numbers are minuscule to war historians but staggering to those who grieve.

Perhaps only the men and women who have personally served in Iraq know the full cost. As a military wife, I have only witnessed a portion of it.

I have stood awkwardly in the cereal aisle as an irate widow informed me she had returned her husband's flag to the president. I have opened the front door to find a friend in hysterics because she erroneously believed her husband was on board a downed helicopter.

The human toll I see is not always so dramatic. It's the realization at a soccer game that a friend's spouse is still deployed. Or, at a child's birthday party, that Mom is taking pictures not so much for posterity, but to e-mail to Dad in Iraq.

I glimpsed the toll in the eyes of the checker at the 7-Day Store. My son and I were in the market for some Kit-Kats for my husband. His unit trains Marines for deployment. They've worked 47 days in a row.

We figured the man could use some Kit-Kats. "Infinity Kit-Kats," emphasized my 4-year-old. So we piled $15 worth onto the counter.

"We're trying to cheer up his dad," I explained to the cashier. "He works a lot."

She nodded knowingly and, like always, I quickly added, "But he comes home every night, so we're very, very lucky."

"Has he gone?" she asked. I nodded. "How many times?"

"Twice. Long ago. Yours?"

"It'll be the third time when he leaves next month." She paused. "At least you have him," she said, nodding to my son. "I don't have anyone else."

I took the bag of Kit-Kats and wished her well. This is the everyday cost, pennies of sadness, loneliness and worry, piling up into that $300 billion mountain.

That's why packing up and leaving Iraq to civil war and the intervention of neighboring countries is not a reasonable conclusion to this war and why the troop surge is welcomed by many in the military.

It's not acceptable for the news media and historians to label this war a "debacle"; cutting our losses and retreating would be devastating to the morale of the military community that has invested so much.

Those who bear the cost and feel the toll in the military community may be fatigued, but they also are resolute, standing tall here and overseas. I hope they will see Americans standing behind them.

Contact the writer: bjs92@adelphia.net

Ellie