New graves, fresh grief.
New graves, fresh grief.
The Washington Post today runs a powerful story on Arlington National Cemetary’s Section 60, home to the “the graves of 336 men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan — almost one in 10 of the dead.”
Mothers and widows, friends and regretful exes write intimate notes, some as casual as a message stuck on a refrigerator door.
“I called your old cellphone the other day. Someone named Brian has it now, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew anything about you.”
“It was so wonderful having lunch with you. Now that I know how easy it is to get here by Metro, I’ll come by way more often.”
Here, the deaths haven’t been fully absorbed. People talk to their dead. They still see their dead. “Somebody drives by,” says Linda Bishop, a few feet from the grave site of her son Jeff, “and you think it’s him. You see him.” The phone rings, says Xiomara Mena Anderson, standing over the grave of her son Andy, and “I always think it’s him.”
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Here is a set of resources to honor the fallen and support the troops and their families.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:23 pmI’m sorry.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:32 pmTry as we might, can we even imagine what these people must feel?
May 20th, 2007 at 1:38 pmI can’t imagine the sadness and grief. I’m sorry for the loss of life.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:03 pmDo the Neo-Cons and Bush even begin to understand this kind of greif and sadness? Do they understand what their responsibilty is for this?
May 20th, 2007 at 2:05 pmI was in tears when I read this early this morning. I copied down the url and sent it to my friends. Six years ago this week I moved to Arlington. I have since moved back to Seattle but my heart will always be there. I thank those who sacrificed so much for our freedoms and I feel for their families. Isn’t it time to end all wars?
May 20th, 2007 at 2:15 pmExcellent Article. If you are not moved to tears by this (as I was) then check your pulse. You’re not alive.
May 20th, 2007 at 2:25 pmIn answer to Jim wolf359, for one to understand this terrible sadness and grief they must have a heart, soul and feeling’s for all living thing’s..This entire administration is far to evil to have any of those feeling’s..Evil exist in the absence of a heart and soul…Greed, feed’s the evil…
Having lost my only child I know exactly what all the survivor’s are going through and I don’t wish that on any one….Year’s later they will hear something interesting or funny and reach for the phone to call their lost loved one and then in a horrible moment break down in tear’s all over again knowing you can’t hear your Dear one’s voice or tell them what you were calling about…You will be out shopping and see something that your loved one would like and reach to buy it, stop cold in your track’s and realize they won’t recieve it because they are not there…Daily reminder’s of joy for the time you had them in your life mixed with grief and sadness of your personal loss is staggering…There is no getting over it or on with life as most people know….
It’s quite diffrent from the sadness of loosing an elder parent or very sick friend, there is a relief of sort’s when the long lived parent or sick friend passes..You are grateful they will not suffer any more and again thankful for the time you had with them….
When a parent is left behind and a child is taken to early for what ever reason or cause many parent’s struggle with suicide as an option to join that child, many other’s such as the military one’s try to cover over the grief with bravery and the thought their child was a hero rather they were or not…The supreme sacrafice for duty and country alway’s has a feel good sound except when the parent is alone, late at night or perhap’s on a holiday or birthday and the lonely tear’s come in bucket’s…
This will not be my own pity party today, it’s about life and death which is a part of life and I am here to say, I grieve every day for my own losses and all these parent’s that are loosing their loved one’s….For every one who has truly loved someone more than your own life, for many of us the pain and grief never goes away…Some can manage and move on other’s throw them selves into work or a tribute project to honor their lost loved one’s but in the end they still grieve each in their own way and for how ever long it take’s….Forever…Blessings to the one’s that are passed and for the one’s left to grieve untill our passing..
May 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pmI couldn’t get past the 1st page…
May 20th, 2007 at 3:24 pmJust reading the short notes posted here almost had me in tears, not sure I could read the full article. The very human face of the brutality of war, and the suffering caused by Bush and his ego.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:45 pmMy brother was killed by an IED on May 3, 2007.
He was 28 years old, a husband, and a father to two beautiful toddler children.
He was one million times the person anyone in the Dim Son’s administration ever would or could be, he gave this country his life. He did it because danger and death were both part of the job. My brother knew that. He lived it. And it eventually killed him.
The pain defies any sort of description. We buried him last Monday. Words cannot do the pain and the grief and the sorrow any justice.
I have been blogging about losing my brother. It can be found here:
http://lauralinger.blogspot.com/
It is basically the chronicle of a broken heart.
Sgt. Andrew R. Weiss
May 20th, 2007 at 8:09 pmBorn March 14, 1979
KIA May 3, 2007
My baby brother
Comment by * Hater — May 20, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
Words aren’t enough. I am so sorry.
May 20th, 2007 at 8:37 pmDid you really have to publish what the people wrote? Don’t you have any respect at all?
It takes a real coward to do this to our heroes. If the people want to share it fine, otherwise leave them have privacy.
God Bless our heroes.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:47 amMark
They are sharing tere grief and agony at the loss of a loved one. Don’t read it and begone. I have lost friends and loved ones to death from cancer and other trauma. You never ever get over it. Each person deals differently with grief. If these wives of our soldiers choise to show thier loss of a loved one by sharing, that’s thier choice. And as with Cindy Sheehan, what’s the noble causetheir dying for.
And one last thing mark, as Senator McCain and the Vice Pres said ” Fu#k You!”
May 21st, 2007 at 8:56 amtere- their/ choise=choose
May 21st, 2007 at 8:57 am