Like any blogger, I occasionally have to indulge my ego and look at the statistics to see who is reading this blog. Obviously, I don’t get names and addresses; I get locations and sometimes the search term that brought them here.
It is those search terms that sometimes grab my heart like an Aztec priest…and wring it as dry as my washer spins the towels. Often it is the search by name—names of the dead that bring them here. And that makes me regret that I didn’t start my moon-quarterly lists of the released names until this spring.
Sometimes, it is terms like “rape of service women” or “accidental deaths in Iraq” typed in the google search that landed them on my net address.
I feel inadequate and terribly humbled when reading some of those heart breaking search terms. I know a lot of them are looking for some help determining how their loved ones really died in Iraq and Afghanistan. So finally, here is something that may aid them. On the blog-roll is a new address: “This Is the Home of the Brave” (http://non-combat-death.org/) This is a site dedicated to helping families of those killed in what is deemed a “non-combat incident” to find some answers.
I get the DOD press releases with the names of the dead almost daily. I see a lot of these non-combat incident labels. And many of them say “the incident is being investigated” but one has to wonder if that is true. After all, some have been investigated for years now, with no answer.
No answer to how a young woman, bruised and battered, with a gunshot wound deemed suicide was also set on fire after death. How exactly do you beat yourself up, shoot yourself in the wrong side of the head for your dominant hand AND burn your own body? No good answer to why a young Special Forces soldier had to die painfully by electrocution in his KBR provided shower stall, either? As the site above says, supporting the troops does not mean turning a blind eye to murder.
My sincerest wishes for answers and justice and peace to the families of men and women lost in these highly suspicious circumstances.
