90,000 Casualties, but Who’s Counting?
by Kelley B. Vlahos, November 10, 2009 Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect new data on total casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans Day arrives tomorrow, and with it, the anticipated harvest of heartbreaking anecdotes driving the press coverage and our ever wandering attention back to less desirable realities: the disfigured but persevering hero, the homeless warrior, the unemployable sergeant, the father or son or daughter who came home a stranger and cannot be reached. Usually, there is nothing more powerful than a personal story to pound home the cost of eight years of war overseas, but I think today there is something even more disturbing to bear. It’s the number 89,457 [.doc] . Veterans for Common Sense 1101 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003 phone 202-558-4553 fax 866-714-6762 http://www.VeteransForCommonSense.org As of Nov. 9, that’s how many American casualties there were in Iraq and Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001, when the Afghan war offic...