After Fort Hood: Count All the Dead

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of Thursday's shoot-out at Fort Hood is that none of the 11 people who died in the melee will be counted as casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers -- "brave Americans," President Obama called them -- will join an unknown number of American soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines, were are not among the 5,267 the Defense Department counts as having died in our most recent wars, but who have perished nonetheless.

It will take days or weeks to learn what really happened at Fort Hood and why, but even at this early moment, we can make one statement for certain. The government's refusal to accurately count their sacrifice of these young men and women dishonors not only these soldiers' memories, but also obscures the public's understanding of the amount of sacrifice required to continue wars in two countries, simultaneously overseas.

Gerald CassidyGo on the website, icasualties.org, which regularly publishes the names the Pentagon reports as having died in two wars and a discerning eye will see a lot of other names are missing.

Missing are the names of service members, like Sgt. Gerald Cassidy,
First Warrant Officer Judson E. Mount, or Spc. Franklin D. Barnett who died stateside after receiving substandard medical care for wounds sustained in the war zones. Cassidy sat dead in a chair for three days at Fort Knox before anyone noticed that he had passed away from complications related to a brain injury sustained in Iraq. Mount died in April 2009 at San Antonio's Brooke Army Medical Center after taking shrapnel from a roadside bomb in November 2008. Barnett died in June 2009 from wounds he sustained in Afghanistan earlier in the year.

Missing too are the names of American soldiers and veterans who have killed themselves after serving a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, people like 19-year-old Spc. John Fish of Paso Robles, California who told his superiors he was thinking of killing himself after his first deployment, but was ordered overseas a second Brian Randtime anyway. While he was training for that second deployment to Afghanistan, Fish walked out into the New Mexican desert after a training exercise for his second deployment and blew his brains out with a military issued machine gun. Or Sgt. Brian Jason Rand of North Carolina, who was found under the Cumberland River Center Pavilion near Fort Campbell, Kentucky in February 2008 with a bullet through his skull and a shotgun by his side.

The Army reports 117 active duty Army soldiers killed themselves in 2007, the year Fish took his life. At the time, it was a 26-year high. But that record was quickly eclipsed by the 2008 Army figure of 128 suicides. In January 2009, more American soldiers committed suicide than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, but none of these deaths are listed in the official casualty count.

Neither are the dozens of soldiers who have killed altercations with law enforcement brought on by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder incurred during deployments overseas -- people like 19- year-old Marine Corps veteran Andes Raya who was shot dead by police in California's rural Central Valley after returning home from Fallujah; or Minnesota Iraq war veteran Brian William Skold, who got drunk and then lead deputies Andres Rayaon a late night chase before stepping out of his pick-up, firing a birdshot into the air, before kneeling on one knee and leveling his shotgun at authorities. Moments later he was fatally shot by two police officers. It's unknown how many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have died this way, but like the 11 soldiers gunned down at Fort Hood this week, their deaths would not have occurred if not for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regardless of what you think of these wars, it's absolutely necessary that the American public be fully appraised of their cost. After all, how can we even begin to honor their memories, if we don't even track their sacrifice.

This article originally appeared on the website of New America Media. NAM Editor Aaron Glantz is author of the book, The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans.

 

Comments

[LaFilleEnRose]

Yes, what a good reminder...and what great thoughts by other bloggers. But lest we sink into only seeing the harm and misery, let's at least honor the light -- however faint. An important bit of that was in The CS Monitor today. Go to: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1108/p08s04-wosc.html
It's an important story as well.

[davism97]

"Perhaps the most depressing aspect of Thursday's shoot-out at Fort Hood is that none of the 11 people who died in the melee will be counted as casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan"

Really?! I tend to think the most depressing aspect of Thursday's shoot-out is that 13 (not 11) people were killed.

[Rugger]

It is also imperative we count the hundreds of thousands to millions of non-combatants who have lost their lives as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their lives matter too. Then, add to this number, those civilians in each country who are maimed and for whom life is now a living hell. This is all for freedom? Whose?

[LWS]

According to the researchers, the overall rate of mortality in Iraq since March 2003 is 13.3 deaths per 1,000 persons per year compared to 5.5 deaths per 1,000 persons per year prior to March 2003. This amounts to about 2.5 percent of Iraqi's population having died as a consequence of the war. To put the 654,000 deaths in context with other conflicts, the authors note that during the Vietnam War an estimated 3 million civilians died overall; the Congo conflict was responsible for 3.8 million deaths.

Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health . Updated Iraq Survey Affirms Earlier Mortality Estimates. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/­2006/10/06­1012092554­.htm

[cky20050]

it is very sad what happened in fort hood. My sister and her family lives on base. Her husband was in the room when it happened and managed to pull some people and himself to saftey. I would not say that this tragedy should count towards the war in Iraq. This happened here at home, where people were getting ready to go to different places to serve our country. So to tag these fatalities with the Iraq and Afghanistan war would be inconsistent with the true heroes that die over there. That is my opinion anyway

[Michael Valentine]

Perhaps these uncounted casualties of the colonization of the middle east will weigh on President Obama's mind as he ponders what to do in Afghanistan. The cost to the troops and their families of bearing the burden of the war is much higher then the number of casualties. ///// Time to share the burden of Afghanistan to the nations in the region. It is in the more so interest of these Muslim countries to stabilize Afghanistan then our interest.

[hrholmes]

Would that include Gaza and the West Bank also too? oh sorry, my bad.

[CostaMolta]

Every kid in America, with a kindergaten or higher education knows that: Once on base - You are safe on base. Keep the shooting overseas. The only depressing thing about our fort hood massacre is that it happend in the first place.

[LWS]

"None of the 11 people who died in the melee will be counted as casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That's because they were not IN Iraq or Afghanistan when they were murdered.

They were in Fort Hood. Texas.

[stillbarbi]

They were still casualties of the effects of those wars.

[LWS]

I am only guessing here, but it seems that you are confusing an emotional desire to honer these men with the formal precision of facts. The mental breakdown of their killer, his delusions or motivations do not alter the material factual nature of the "where" and "how" of these deaths. It may or may not be true that the fact of the War on Terror has baring in regards to the psychology of the killer -- but that is the extent of its real context.

The United States Department of Defense has an obligation and a mandate to record battle-related injuries and deaths -- these are formal categories. Soldiers who are injured or killed as a result of accident, for example if a Helicopter were to crash in bad weather or because of mechanical failure, would not be listed as battlefield casualties either even if this occurred in theater. The factual nature of these events must be preserved in an accurate manner regardless of emotion.

[hippieforlife]

Why do people always have to make excuses for terrible behavior? This man never was in combat and could have resigned his commission.

The only one responsible for this horrible event is the man who pulled the trigger. The world will always have wars. Not all people decide to committ cold-blooded murder. No excuse for that. None.

The people he killed had no way to defend themselves. This man deserves no pity.

[stillbarbi]

He tried to resign and offered to pay the Army back for their investment in his education. They refused to release him, even after they knew of his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He joined the Army before 911 and George W. Bush. He liked being in the Army. He just didn't want to be deployed to a war zone, and be involved in war with countries that didn't pose a threat to our Country. You know, the war in Iraq fought under false pretenses, based on manipulated intelligence. Since Bin Laden and most of the Taliban are no longer in Afghanistan, there is no reason for us to be there either.

No one is defending him, or condoning what he did. He is responsible for his actions.

[LWS]

Reply to stillbarbi Part 1.

A war based on false pretenses? I think not. The context extends over decades, and is complex, but not vague or false in any way.

For several decades the United States, through a U.N. mandate, and in a cooperative effort with Great Britain and our Saudi allies worked to restrain Saddam Hussein from acts of aggression in an area of the world where unrestrained warfare would impact international trade and economies on a global scale.

It was the United Nations peace keeping forces who first discovered and reported Iraqi use of chemical weapons against unarmed civilians including women and children.

Saddam Hussein is the only leader ever to use Mustard Gas and Chemical Nerve Agents against unarmed civilians. The cold blooded murder of thousands of Kurds by his troops must be taken into account in any examination of Saddam Husein's motives and actions.

After the first Gulf War the United Nations recorded the extendt of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

Even though it was dismantled, evidence persists that Iraq made efforts to restart this program and to acquire nuclear weapons from other sources.

continued ...

[salty07]

And means that, if you really, really feel that way, as an officer, you could not serve. And there are about a hundred better ways to pursue conscientious objector status than gunning down your unarmed buddies. That's a garbage excuse. I don't know where you heard that this guy tried to resign, but I would check that very carefully. If he was honest about his belief in the extremist Islamic narrative to his superiors, I don't think that he would be wearing a uniform very long. It sounds like he was pretty outspoken, but his peers gave him a lot of leeway, specifically becaue they didn't want to be accused of predjudice.

[Travis Melton]

I said the exact same thing yesterday Mr. Glantz. They are casualties, the same as the faceless civilians we kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. End the war, bring home the soldiers, and lets fix our broken country.

[LWS]

We are not killing faceless civilians. We are fighting organized enemy combatants.

Unlike the terrorists cowards who attacked and murdered 2000 innocent American's on 9/11.

[Vegas3]

Crying out loud, why does it matter if the casualties are counted towards the war or not? Is this just a excuse to poke a thumb in the eye of our decision to fight terrorism? It shouldn't matter if it is or not counted towards the war, this is a tragic event that needs no politicizing!

[valkyrie607]

"The decision to fight terrorism."

Right. Can you please define terrorism? Last I heard, it was the tactic of killing civilians in order to accomplish political change. So we're fighting a tactic--a tactic which we sometimes use ourselves, when we bomb wedding parties in Pakistan.

I think you missed your talking points memo though, because aren't we supposed to be fighting "terror"? That is, we're fighting an emotion! Talk about a never-ending war!

Anyway, I'd really love to hear your definition of terrorism, and how you think one can ever defeat what is essentially a tactic, not a group or nation.

[LWS]

We are fighting the organized military forces who:

1.Attacked and murdered 2000 innocent American men and women on 9/11.
2. Then declared war on the United States.
4. Then vowed to murder an additional 4 million American's including women and children.

Is that clear enough?

[teletom]

So the most depressing aspect is which list they wind up on? I would say it's more depressing that they were killed.

[Vegas3]

This event needs to politicizing!

[stillbarbi]

You missed the whole point, which is that the casualties of war extend far beyond those who die in war zones.

[teletom]

Actually I didn't....I failed to be impressed by his and your rhetoric....and the need to politicize these events before the bodies are even laid to rest.

[shutterbabe]

While I am saddened by the content of Aaron Glantz's blog, I am pleased to see this issue addressed in such a powerful manner. To witness the young faces and stories of our troops who have perished by their own hand-or medical neglect- is chilling.

These statistics cannot be ignored, tossed into some dark corner while the wars wage on. The sacrifices have already been great for a cause that has been suspect for too many years.

[LWS]

Suspect in what manner?

[darker]

WAR = BIG MONEY for CORPORATE PROFITEERS.
That is the biggest MOTIVE for creating war-business.

[1will]

Wars also start when people fly airplanes into your skyscrapers.

[Travis Melton]

Curious, who trained those people to fly? That happened in America did it not? Where are the WMD's? The CIA created this entire problem, now we all get to live with it. That sums up both of the wars imo.

[Salfana]

From the 19 Hijackers 16 were Saudis. They mostly arrived in the US starting in January 2000. The US trained the pilots and let those people in. Iraq had nothing to do with this. If Afghanistan was such a priority why his Bin Laden still at large?

Besides the Talibans were approved by the US because they promised to restore order in Afganistan. When the Russian left a big vacuum was left. The warlords who were trained and given arms by the US during the Russian war started a civil war and the opium trade funded their wars. So the Talibans mostly refugee Pashtuns of the Russian war into Pakistan arrived and clean everything up as they had promised to the US. After a couple of years the Taliban's regime was terrorizing the Afghanis. Our country knew of this for a long time. It is only when the Taliban's refuse the US to search for Bin Laden that war was declared against Afghanistan.

Why ho why did we engage in a war in Afghanistan since it would have been so much better to send special ops to get Bin Laden and the training camps. So what are the results of this war up to now, the culprit his still at large and the population of Afghanistan are sufuring another tyrant corrupted Regime and mostly the Afghanis is joining the Talibans because they just have enough of the US occupation.