By Carol Lucas
It’s that time again when I am confronted with so many subjects about which to write. Believe it or not, it does become difficult to decide what is of immediate concern and what can be back-burnered for another week or two.
There is the most recent embarrassment, the journalists’ dinner at which 47 actually chose to speak and made a complete fool of himself. It was to be expected if you were even remotely aware of his relationship with the press.
I chose not to watch, knowing full well I would be angered, so I watched a special series dealing with places experiencing weird phenomena. You might justifiably ask, “So how was that any different?” But I digress.
Instead, I went back to something I saw earlier in the week, something that is always sobering to those of us with any sensitivity — the dignified transfer of four young people who lost their lives during this untenable war of “choice.” The reverence that is always (or almost always) afforded this kind of ceremony is usually palpable.
Beaufort, a town that supports our military wholeheartedly, need not be reminded of the significance of such. “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” should permeate every brain as you watch this somber transfer.
And yet, there stood the head of our country in a row of people at the entrance of the plane bearing the four bodies, the only one with head unbowed. That, in itself, would have been bad enough if for no other reason than optics. Given his history of comments such as “suckers and losers”, his disdain for John McCain, distinguished Vietnam war hero, and his own evasion of the draft, no one was particularly surprised.
That short “photo op” for the leader of our country, while embarrassing, is hardly worthy of a newsflash!
No indeed, dear reader. While I may have been disgusted as I watched, even I would have chalked it up to business as usual.
It is, instead, the follow up report dealing with the deaths of these four young people whose lives were just beginning, and who chose to enter the armed forces for their own personal reasons.
The report of which I speak is the game of numbers, the game this administration is playing with those four lives and subsequent deaths of kids who came home in coffins!
If you aren’t aware, let me try to explain.
The Pentagon’s official website suddenly showed fewer U.S. troop deaths from the Iran war than it had just days earlier. The numbers changed. The explanations changed.
This was the timeline as well as the explanation for the numbers drop. On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran.
By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war.
Three military officials said that one reason behind the change was that the Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the list — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.
The officials described sensitive internal discussions on the condition of anonymity.
The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, attributed the change instead to “temporary data disruptions” on the website that he suggested would be quickly fixed.
How fast and loose we play with someone else’s death.
I want to interject something here, and you may or may not agree. As I read about each of these twenty-somethings, it occurred to me that three of the four were people of color and two of the four were women. Was it some convoluted thinking that prompted the inhumane “erasure?” I was never a conspiracy believer till this administration came along, but now …
As I sat writing this, I was jerked back in time to my first visit to the Vietnam Memorial. I remembered the scene vividly, my search for the name of a young man I had taught in class and finding that name. I know I touched the engraving and felt as though I were touching something holy.
At that point I broke down for the loss of someone so young. A vet, one of many who were often seen at the memorial, was at my side immediately, and he asked whether or not it was a relative. I explained my quest, and he took several minutes to talk to me, actually to momentarily talk me down from my grief.
I am far from an expert on the mechanics of the military, but even I can recognize an attempt to cook the books on numbers to make the policies of this administration look less dangerous and evil. These four kids gave the last full measure and to treat their deaths as otherwise is unacceptable.
For those of you who want to view this as just another TDS rant, I suggest you ask yourself this question: “How would I react if it were my child?”
One veteran wrote the following: “As veterans, we learned something very early in military service. Accountability matters. Every soldier counts. Every Marine counts. Every sailor counts. Every airman counts. Every Guardian counts. Nobody gets left behind.
“Not on the battlefield. And not on a spreadsheet.”
I am enraged over the total disrespect of our military. We all should be enraged!
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”