On the same day the story of family mourning 1st Lt. Adam Malson, a 2003 MSU graduate slain while serving in Iraq, was shared, 125 people were killed in Iraq by an insurgent suicide bomber in the single deadliest terror attack of the Iraq war.
We know a great deal about Malson. He was a Rochester Hills native who joined the U.S. armed forces because he wanted to help his country through the Iraqi conflict. The Pentagon says he was killed while assisting a wounded Iraqi woman on her way to a mosque. Every Halloween Malson dressed up like GI Joe. There is no doubt he was a hero.
There are few stories told about the 125 individuals killed in Iraq on Monday. What is being told is that the attack came in an area of Hilla where police recruits were waiting to get physicals. The government office was near a market many people frequented. Videos shown online reveal the bodies in bloody piles.
This contrast of one life lost to 125 is a magnified view of the bigger death toll in Iraq. As the toll for U.S. deaths nears 1,500, there are sad stories of slain U.S. soldiers to take in every week. Meanwhile, the cold number of innocent Iraqis killed during the war and occupation remains unattainable, although some estimates put the number at more than 100,000.
More often than not, the significance of the losses suffered by Iraqis is addressed by the dates when the most carnage occurred. We are told that, before Monday, the most devastating attack was held either during an Aug. 29, 2003, assault in Najaf, where at least 84 people were killed, or on March 2, 2004 in Karbala, where at least 85 were killed.
Let it be explicitly known, the intention of a comparison is not to devalue the lives of U.S. troops. They are heroes and their stories must be told. It just seems that, when humanizing the sky-rocketing death toll in Iraq, America hears nothing about those who are losing the most.
The deaths of Iraqis might be of little significance for Americans who have a family member who's been killed in the country those people come from. That makes sense. American deaths hit home, and they are important.
Despite the stickiness of the situation, it remains a fact that many Iraqis are trying to bring about peace in their country. Millions ventured out into dangerous streets to vote for freedom in an election in January. Those who were at the bombed building waiting to get physicals were patriots. They were fighting for the same ideals the United States fought for more than 200 years ago.
Although differing opinions about the U.S. occupation might be held in the hearts of Americans and Iraqis, those opinions target the actions of government - not people. On a human level, innocent sons, brothers, husbands and boyfriends, daughters, sisters, wives and girlfriends are being lost by both sides. And the same kind of grief takes hold of people universally.
It's important to place value and thought on all innocent deaths in this conflict, regardless of what country those who are killed belong to.
