Death of a soldier

Since I've been in Iraq a soldier has died almost every day in the MND-C AO. Sometimes just one soldier, sometimes two, and the blessed days where no one is killed or injured. I'm not really sure what to make of it, to be honest.

When I was working at the Pentagon the death of an airman seemed to be more of an academic exercise, for lack of a better description. Due to the AF's role in the GWOT the likelihood of dying is pretty small. This is not a criticism of the AF, of course, just a recognition of the fact that their role in the Joint Fight is somewhat different. The tip of the spear would cease functioning without the AF. That being said the death of an airman was always somewhat remote. We did talk about it, read about the deaths in the daily Ops Brief etc but it was just a number on a chart. In the Big House I'd describe the reaction as a kind of institutional existential angst.

Things are a bit different out here in the sandbox. The lens through which I view the situation is one primarily of a Public Affairs staffer. For better or worse that generally means that I'm one of the first people at higher headquarters to know when things have gone to shit. It is an odd thing to be in the office at 2330 (after a 14 hour day) and see a death notice being staffed through the coordination process.

Even though the soldier likely died somewhere out in BFE Iraq there is a real sense of weariness and sadness I see from the soldiers around here every time one of their own is sent off to meet his or her maker. It is an odd thing and rather hard to describe without witnessing it...moments of quiet and then two minutes later it is time to drive on and continue with the day's work. I suppose things might be a bit easier if a soldier was out on patrol and simply was shot. For better or worse that fits in a neat and tidy intellectual box...sometimes that stuff just sort of happens to men at war. However, when you hear stories that Iraqi Police were detained under the suspicion of being party of the death is makes you wonder...particularly when the same guy that was killed was training the police and breaking bread with the same individuals the day before. Likewise, when the locals that soldiers have spent months getting to know turn out to be the IED makers...it can be somewhat difficult to rationalize this sort of behavior.

At the end of the day the fact of the matter is that, for me, the death of a soldier is just a number of a chart as I have no real frame of reference. I think that I expected things to be similar to reading the daily death updates in the Washington Post...there is nothing that the media enjoy more than a steadily rising bodycount. The reality is that the numbers are the same to me...whether I read them in the Post, hear about it at the BUB or happen to be on the Ops floor when the report comes across the wire. The difference, I guess, is that I'm seeing the reactions of all those that have to put next-of-kin notification procedures into motion and I see them drafting up the release that will be add to the Post's count the next day.

Even though this must be old hat for many of the people here by now it is somewhat unsettling (in a good way) to know that the process kicks into high gear to get a death notification released. The death of a soldier is still something that is cause to wake up commanders and senior leadership in the middle of the night to keep them informed and have them make decisions. In an age where many soldiers have access to email and cell phones out in the field the staff at headquarters still uses words like "solemn obligation" and "final tribute" when it comes to ensuring that a family hears about the death of their loved one from a commander first instead of from one of the soldier's buddies in the field. One often hears about the loneliness of command or the weight of command...which is something that I really don't know the first thing about. However, I can imagine that times such as the above certainly contribute to the experience. In a world where half-measures are often the rule rather than the exception I suppose it is good to know that these professional men take this awful duty very, very seriously.

I can sit here and post this on a blog that no one reads, drink my coffee and consider the state of the world. One question I have been asked from the folks back at home is: what is war like? Life at Camp Victory is really a poor substitute for life at war as nothing really happens here. War, for me, didn't have a "face" until recently. I guess if I had to describe the "face of war" now to anyone that asked I'd describe the look on the face of the soldier that has to announce "we've had another one killed..."

Something to think about, anyway.