Bring the Body Bag Count Back to TV News to Make Iraq War Real

As of march 18, 11,344 American soldiers had been injured in the war on Iraq, according to the New York Times, one of the only papers to run a photo feature on the wounded soldiers.

One of the reasons gruesome realities of the Iraq War don't seem to hit home to most people is that, unlike the graphic representations of the Vietnam era, TV News downplays the body bag counts, and the government prohibits filming of the wounded arriving back in the States.

"You live," says Lt. Col. Craig Silverton, an orthopedic surgeon who has treated soldiers in Iraq, "but you have these devastating injuries." ... Amputation rates among soldiers, according to recent Congressional estimates, have doubled to 6 percent from the historic norm. Brain injuries are also common.

Why are journalists so afraid of the government that they don't visit the wounded and show their suffering on the nightly news? Bring back the body bag counts! Young people are suffering horrific injuries and deaths that go unheeded by all but their circle of friends and family. We need billboards with pictures of the wounded along the hihgways, at bus stops and in every shopping mall. Let the people see what war really means. And ask the politicians again, "What's your exit plan for this war?"

But Mister President the advisers grinned
the body count shows we'll actually win,
statistics never tell a lie
with ten thousand more
we'll win this bloody war.
From the Poem, The Domino Theory
by John Moller
Platoon Commander
Whiskey Two Company RNZIR
Vietnam War