flag day 2007

We started the roll call of Floridians who died in Iraq on May 1, 2007, May Day. I was irritated because I had just learned a couple more local guys had died the previous day. I found out just how many Americans paid the price and figured one of our soldiers died every eleven hours or so.

Using that rate, I decided to name each of the Floridians who paid that ultimate price. I quickly realized that the effort would end near the 4th of July, but did not even consider that Memorial Day and Flag Day would also be included in the series, but here we are.

Just wanna stop here and make a clarification. Shortly after I began the effort, an anonymous reader suggested my motives were untrue:

It would be nice if this roll call had more of a feeling of an reverent “thank you” than a trite political middle finger… Nah. That would require an admission that someone volunteered to sacrifice their life so you could have the freedom to backhandedly mock their deaths.

As I responded to that reader, The roll call is not meant as a “thank you” or a “middle finger.” And I certainly don’t intend to mock anyone. I simply got tired of reading about the deaths in the news, and hearing very little public reaction or any realization that these were actual REAL people. It seems we have become numb to the news. I just want to point out that these great heroes were regular folks, many of them played high school football, some were practical jokers, and they had all sorts of passions. Just like you. People who lived here because they like the beach, or the low taxes, or because it’s where they were born. Just like you.

Anyway, I’m not sure that point is getting across.

So far, we have mentioned 92 dead soldiers, heroes, Floridians. There were 63 listed by Memorial Day, and almost another 30 thus far in June. As I mentioned in when I began, if the rate had held up, another 92 Americans would have been killed since May 1 of this year. But we have already lost another 162 soldiers, meaning the rate of American deaths have gone up almost double over the past month and a half.

Over the course of the series, we expected five more Floridians would be killed between May 1 and July 4, and with a bit over 2 weeks still to go, we have already had six more pay that toll, including Joshua Brown from Tampa. So for those of you who think this roll call has gone on too long already, will unfortunately have to bear with it a bit longer than originally intended.

And happy Flag Day.