Posted on 10/04/2007 8:47:32 AM PDT by dnmore
The past three months in Iraq have been the deadliest stretch for Florida's fighting men and women since 2005.
From July through September, 15 service members who called Florida home were killed in Iraq -- including six last month.
"Yes, they're Marines, they're Army, but they're our babies, too," said Donna Hunsicker, 41, mother of Marine Cpl. Christopher L. Poole Jr., killed when a suicide bomber steered a vehicle into a security checkpoint.
U.S. service members are doing their job, she said, but their duty is complicated by the fact that "they don't want us over there anymore."
"These people want us out. My son couldn't even protect himself because he was blown up. He couldn't fight back. He couldn't get away if he wanted to -- he didn't know that [explosive] was in that truck."
In all, 158 Floridians -- and 3,806 Americans overall -- have died in the Iraq war.
Two years ago, 15 Floridians were killed in September through November. The high mark for Florida military deaths in Iraq is 17, recorded in March through May 2004, and again, later that year, in October through December.
"Violence in these wars is indiscriminate when employed by insurgent forces, and it can kill anyone who serves in Iraq or Afghanistan," said Army Capt. Steve Alvarez, public-affairs officer for the 143rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) in Orlando.
"It matters not where a person is from. This is a more dangerous war for all military personnel because it can reach out and touch any of us at any given time."
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Real facts here
Watching the nightly Florida news, I would say many more. Locally, it was a nightly occurrence, add in the deaths caused by drunk driving illegals, close to epidemic. But now that our Sheriff is ICE certified, if they stop for a crime or traffic offense, they can check citizenship, the jails check citizenship with ICE, the problem seems to have moved to another Florida county :^). It's been surprisingly quite for weeks now.
You should ask your sheriff to put in place a similar program, the training if free, the results are great for the citizens.
Why? What would that have to do with military casualties in Iraq?
This Army captain should be relieved of his duties to speak on behalf of the Army. From the Commander-in-Chief down, we have failed massively in the P.R. campaign that is necessary to win a war. In WWII, not only did they have to "sell" the war to keep it popular, but they had to literally sell the war in order to fund it with war bonds. Bush, et al, have failed miserably. This Army officer should have compared these numbers to those in other wars while being careful not to diminish the sacrifice made by the soldier in question.
158 Floridians in over four years, in a population of 16,000,000, of which 1/3 were accidents.
Perspective matters. Florida last year had 110 murders or manslaughter cases in the Jacksonville area alone. In all Florida had 1,129 murder or manslaughter cases in 2006 alone. But is the steady humdrum of normal crime a politicized topic today? No. Think about this, in the US, we will loose more people in 26 days than casualties in the Iraq war over the last FOUR YEARS for all reasons combined in vehicular accidents! In fact, in one day we loose as many people in the US in vehicular accidents as all of Florida's casualties for all reasons in Iraq over the last four years. But again, is this a huge political and media hot button topic today? No.
It’s about perspective-
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