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Tombstones Mark Anniversary of Another Infamous Date
by Mike Ferner
March 19, 2003: a date that will live in infamy. Perhaps not in the minds of many of our fellow citizens, but surely to most people around the world. On that date, U.S. military forces invaded Iraq.
image: Arlington Midwest
Almost a year later I was in a small farming village some miles north of Baghdad, accompanying members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. They were recording the stories of the common people of Iraq who had no access to news media or decision-makers in the Green Zone.
One of those stories was from a village sheikh who recounted his weeks of horror as a detainee under the control of the U.S. Army.
He and a dozen others were held in, or rather, on, a patch of
open ground, surrounded by concertina wire, exposed to the sun, huddled
against a two-day rain, a hole dug with their hands for a toilet. After
several days he finally was given at least a blanket.
With his
humanity and graciousness somehow still intact, he quickly added that
he understood the difference between the American people and their
government. But then he uttered the words that haunt me to this day:
- “But you say you live in a democracy. How can this be happening to us?”
As we arrive at the heartbreaking fifth anniversary of the
invasion of Iraq and begin Year Six as that nation’s occupier, it is a
good time to reflect on the words of that sheikh.
We might,
for example, reflect on this democracy business and whether we have it
in such surplus that we can drop quantities of it from F-16’s on those
we deem need it most; or whether shoveling additional billions into the
treasuries of Exxon, Texaco, Shell, Halliburton, and Blackwater
ultimately will make our society more or less democratic.
We
might reflect on the 1 million-plus Iraqis we have killed, the likely 5
million wounded, the more than 4 million displaced from their homes,
the untold millions desperate for clean water, electricity, food, work,
security, and sanity in an unending madness. We might reflect on
whether we are more or less safe following such a holocaust against our
fellow human beings.
We also could reflect on some numbers
painfully close to home - at least 3,984 U.S. troops killed and 29,320
wounded, according to President Bush. His definition of “casualties”
conveniently does not include more than 100 suicides and 31,325
“non-hostile” injuries - such as getting hurt in a traffic accident
racing down the road to a firefight. That is somehow not considered
“wounded in action.”
We could reflect on all the doctors,
teachers, scientists, and loving parents whose communities will never
benefit from their skills and compassion because their blood drained
into the sands of Iraq.
We could reflect on how much
healthcare or schooling or public transit we might have bought with the
$3 trillion plus this war is likely to cost, or the $390 million it has
already taken from taxpayers in the city of Toledo, or the $18 billion
vacuumed out of Ohio.
For generations, graveyards have been
traditional places to pause and reflect. One particularly stirring and
poignant portrayal of a graveyard, called Arlington Midwest, will be
erected on the lawn of the Lucas County Courthouse today through
Saturday.
It consists of some 5,000 small, wooden tombstones, painted
white and arranged in precise rows like its namesake in Virginia. Each
marker bears the name, rank, branch of service, hometown, and place and
date of death for every U.S. soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unique to the dozen or so “Arlingtons” that Veterans For Peace has
inspired around the country, Arlington Midwest also has a section
memorializing the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have taken their
own lives, and a moving tribute to the Iraqi dead.
Just as
that mystified village sheikh wondered - “But you say you live in a
democracy. How can this be happening to us?” - so might we stand
silently for a moment in Arlington Midwest and ask ourselves, “How can
this be happening to us?”
Mike Ferner is a
member of the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition and author of “Inside the
Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq.” He served two terms,
from 1989-93, on Toledo City Council.
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