A Memorial Day Rant

Today is officially Memorial Day, but it's commemorated on the closest Monday, which was yesterday.

Yesterday in Iraq, more than 40 people lost their lives, but there were four people in particular that caught my attention. Two have been getting a lot of press coverage, along with their colleague who was seriously injured. CBS cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan were two of the dead and CBS reporter Kimberly Dozier is seriously injured.

The other two dead are footnotes. They are both as of yet "unnamed". One was an American soldier, presumably with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division that the CBS crew was traveling with and the other was an Iraqi interpreter.

Did you know this? I didn't know this until a brief mention last night on MSNBC's Countdown. The other two news reports I'd watched that evening did not mention the deaths of the soldier or the interpreter, nor did any of the online articles I'd seen. Disgraceful.

Memorial Day is not a day to commemorate dead journalists. Don't get me wrong, any death in this ill-conceived war is wrong, but the misplaced focus on the journalists is self-serving and yet another example of how out of touch the American mainstream media is. They are so caught up in themselves (witness the departure of Katie Couric for another shining example) that they seem to lose the real and important stories.

I suppose it's sort of a "man bites dog" type of story. We expect soldiers to die but we do not expect journalists to die. I get that, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that Douglas and Brolan were not the only casualties yesterday.

I've spent 30 minutes trying to find the names of the two other men who died--in vain (both their deaths and my search....) They are merely footnotes in every single story I found online. The only reason I learned that their names have not been released was because of a story in the Seattle Times, yet there are dozens upon dozens of stories about the CBS crew.

So today, on Memorial Day, take a moment to remember those who have made ultimate sacrifices in this war--2691 coalition dead, an estimated 38,000 Iraqi dead, and 18,184 Americans injured (sources: CNN and www.iraqbodycount.org). And think about two men—an American soldier and an Iraqi translator--who died on Monday.