Varifrank: Palm Beach Post: Map of US Casualties

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Palm Beach Post: Map of US Casualties

For some reason I can't begin to fathom, The Palm Beach Post saw fit to burn the calories and manhours to make this map.

The "green dots" 1 Death.
The "yellow dots" 2-5 Deaths.
The "Orange dots" 6-10 Deaths.
The "Red dots" 11-29 Deaths.

The original interactive map can be found here. You are invited to view the names of the dead by clicking on the dots.

And what conclusions are we as citizens invited to draw from this map?

That "Blue States" lose more soldiers, sailors and airmen than "Red States"?

That "Big cities" lose more than rural counties?

No.
They might have been trying to show that but thats not what I got out of it.

What I got out of it was far more simple than that.

They were all Americans.

What more, except a quiet, humbled respectful 'thank you' is there to be said about the deaths of our countrymen?

I will let the words of Mr. Abraham Lincoln in his time, speak for us in ours:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate we can not consecrate we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This was delivered by President Lincoln in November 1863, at the burial site of over 30,000 American deaths at the battlefield of Gettysburg Pennsylvania.

I will only add to the thoughts of President Lincolm that the lives lost by the men and women reflected on this map, volunteers all, have helped change a world where this was the normal fate of Muslim women and children:

( Kurdish Woman and Child, Killed as a result of Saddam Hussein Mustard Gas Attacks in Hillabja - 1992. )

To a world where this is happening:

(Iraqi Woman Voting - 2005.)

Let us all wonder at their courage, Let us all be thankful for their service to mankind, Let us all feel the loss of their passing, but let no one say they died in vain.

Posted @ July 05, 2005 01:59 PM | Current Affairs

Are they sure that these were all hometowns rather than the location of the home bases?

Posted by: Juliette at July 5, 2005 07:00 PM

I think they go with the info they have. If the service member gives a post office box of hndersen nevada because the last place they worked was at Tonopah, that becomes their hometown.

I was just revolted by the ghoulish nature of the whole thing. I tried real heard to think that they were just trying to tell a story. Im not sure I was totally successful

I noticed that they talk about these as US deaths in the 'War on Terror', but theres nothing on the WTC, Pentagon and Pennsylvania, as if that wasnt really part of the "War On Terror".

Posted by: varifrank at July 5, 2005 07:41 PM