The drumbeat of news from Iraq–hopeful, like the progress in shaping a permanent government, or tragic, like the reports of deadly suicide attacks–occasionally threatens to become a drone. Sometimes the valor of coalition forces, the overwhelming number of them American men and women, is muffled by the noise of other, more immediate news.
Then comes a week like this one, when names of real people shatter any creeping complacency. Edward “Augie” Schroeder, 23, of Cleveland. Brian Montgomery, 26, of Willoughby, Ohio. Nathaniel Rock, 26, of Toronto, Ohio.
Nineteen Marine reservists–all from an Ohio-based battalion–have died in Iraq this week. Five were killed Monday and 14 more on Wednesday, the latter group when a massive roadside bomb blew up an amphibious vehicle in the western Iraqi town of Haditha. Two others from the same 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, were killed July 28.
The battalion has approximately 1,000 members and is based in Brook Park, a Cleveland suburb. It is composed of five companies, three of them based in Ohio, and has lost more than 40 members since it was deployed in Iraq in January.
Many of the dead were not strangers randomly thrown together in the chaos of war. Most volunteered for the same Marine reserve units at roughly the same time, trained together, got to know each other and became pieces of one another’s personal histories. They became warriors and buddies as well, their families now all the more entwined with one another in a loss the survivors must find incalculable.
Some Americans have asked whether the greater effectiveness and cohesiveness of reserve units made up of soldiers from a particular locality can compensate for the tragedy when a clutch of them lose their lives simultaneously during a horrible day in battle. For the moment, that debate seems academic and disrespectful.
But 28 months into the Iraq campaign, more than 1,800 Americans have been killed, and several thousand more wounded. A week such as this one, with its bad news so geographically concentrated, brings home the tremendous sacrifices of those who are part of the fight, and of their families as well.
The deaths were not Ohio’s only brush with Iraq this week. On Tuesday, Democrat Paul Hackett, a Marine reservist, narrowly lost his bid to become the first Iraq war veteran to serve in Congress. In a generally conservative district in the Cincinnati area–Republicans greatly outnumber Democrats–Hackett was defeated by Republican Jean Schmidt, a former state lawmaker, by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent.
Republicans appreciated the victory; Democrats sensed slipping support for the war.
But the politics of Iraq weren’t what gripped Paul Schroeder, who lost his 23-year-old son this week. “My son is a sharp kid,” he told the Associated Press, before correcting himself. “Was. My son was a sharp kid.”
