We have collected correspondence of American soldiers at war in Iraq, accounts written not for the public but for those they loved--wives, husbands, children, parents, siblings.  Each of the warriors whose words are excerpted here died in the line of duty.  Each of their families chose to share their stories with us, and with you. "It's become very important to me that these soldiers and Marines are viewed as individuals with lives, dreams, experiences and families," says Terri Clifton, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Chad Clifton, was killed by a mortar in Anbar province. "They aren't cardboard cutouts in shades of red, white and blue."

…For the first time in the experience of any living American, we have sent an all-volunteer force overseas to advance our interests for a prolonged period, and virtually nothing has been asked of the vast majority of those who do not have loved ones in the line of fire. The bargain is hardly fair.
--"Our Soldier's Stories: The War in the Words of the Dead," Jon Meacham, Newsweek, April 2, 2007. The entire issue is devoted to the fallen in Iraq.


As soon as I opened the latest issue of Newsweek, "Voices of the Fallen," and turned to the pages that featured about ten photographs per page--all candid poses of troops with their buddies at war, with their families at home, in uniform and out--and my gaze fell on that big ole goofy grin, I burst into tears.

Pfc. Rex Page, promoted posthumously to Lance Corporal, 21 years old the day a sniper ended his life.

I didn't know Rex personally, but my son did. He was my son's friend and served in Dustin's platoon. After his death, I wrote Rex's family, to tell them how much their son had been beloved by his buddies, how hard they fought to keep him alive, how hard he fought to live, how brave he had been. I knew these things because my son had told me.

I told her that we would never forget her son, that his memory would live in the lives of his buddies, and that my son, I knew, would try to live a life that Rex would have been proud to live, if he'd had the chance.

A few weeks later, Rex's mother, Edie Page, wrote me back from their home in Kirksville, Missouri. A woman of strong personal faith and patriotism, a kind soul who answered every condolence letter she received, and who handled the devastating death of her son with grace and dignity, it was easy to see why Rex had turned out the way he had.

THIS is what makes politics personal.

But the tribute issue of Newsweek is not about politics. As Larry Page, Rex's dad, told the magazine, "It's not an issue of being pro-war or anti-war, anti-Bush or pro-Bush…The real issue is that our young people are there, and they need and deserve our support."

The issue is divided into fourths, one section for each year of the war's duration. Each year's section features excerpts from letters home, e-mails, journals and diaries, and instant-messages with loved ones from troops who died during that year. Their ages are given, and the ways in which they died.

The letters trace the arc of the war, from the hopeful invasion of 2003 to the morass of civil war today, and these passages are brutally honest, written by men and women exhausted from the constant vigilance, the death and misery around them, the sporadic bursts of terrible combat, the frustrations with the way the war was going, the anger at the Iraqis who seemed determined to annihilate each other, the losses of friends, the fear for their own lives.

The fear, period.

"Any day I'm here could be the day I die," wrote Travis Youngblood, 26.

Some of the letters had been written by men as old as 51, to their children, and some by young men and women barely out of high school. One major kept a journal for his newborn son. He promised that, one day, he would explain to his son some of the things about war that are so very hard to understand.

To a man or woman, they are all homesick. They are proud of their service, but often question just what it is they are supposed to be doing there. As the Iraqis turned against them, they wrote about how hard it was to be surrounded by people you could not trust.

One wrote that he gave little gifts and candies to children whenever he could, in hopes that, when that child grew up, he would remember the American's kindness, and not hate.

I stared at each photograph--the son sticking his tongue out over his mom's shoulder, the 40-something year old man standing proudly with his four teenage children, the guys holding babies, or in combat gear, grinning with their buddies, some just minutes before their deaths.

I read their letters, and flipped back to the pictures, matching face with name.

I read Rex's letter, discussing how tense the situation had become for them after the bombing of the Samarra mosque.  I remember it well.  After Dustin had survived the Battle of Fallujah in November of 2004, he was three weeks into a relatively boring second deployment--when the mosque bombing unleashed the demons from hell.

After that, every day was a fight for survival.

Reading the letters and looking at the photographs, I cried.

I cried and I cried.

And then I turned the page.

At the end, there were a handful of letters that had been photographed, as they were written on the lined pages in the guys' own handwriting. It was THE letter, the one they all write to their loved ones before going into combat, just in case something were to happen to them.

Tributes to their moms and dads. Memories of growing up. Love to buddies and girlfriends, advice to brothers and sisters. Apologies for dying. Pride in their service, honor for their countries, faith in God. Favorite quotes about courage and faith.

"Until we meet again, my heart, soul, and love are with you," wrote Sgt. Patrick Tainsh, 33.

"I hope I've made you all proud. Don't be sad," wrote LCpl. Anthony Butterfield, 19.

"Marines guard the streets of heaven," wrote LCpl. Lance Graham, 26, "Who else would God trust?"

Among the personal effects of Army Major David Taylor, 37, was found a quotation from philosopher John Stuart Mill that he wrote a year after Fort Sumpter in a piece to Harper's Magazine entitled, "The Contest in America."

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things," Mill wrote. "A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for…is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

As I sit here, writing these words, these faces at my elbow still, and burned into my heart forever, I weep.

They are all my sons and my daughters. For any Marine or Army parent, they are all our children.


Allowing room for fear, grief, and loss must define the dominant experience in Iraq today, where the suffering caused by this American war mounts inexorably.

…What you are most aware of is the return of the clenched feeling in your chest, a knot of distressing sadness…

The sorrow is back…Friends greet one another with a choked acknowledgment of a nearly unspeakable frustration at what unfolds in Iraq. This seems true whether people oppose the war absolutely, or only on pragmatic terms, whether they want U.S. troops out at once, or over time.

…But the word sorrow implies more than grief and loss. The palpable sadness of a people reluctantly at war can push toward a fuller moral reckoning…
--"Americans Face a Moral Reckoning," James Carroll, Boston Globe, March 26, 2007. Mr. Carroll was comparing the grief we feel now with what those of us who were there, felt during the Vietnam war--"The sorrow is back."

To look at these faces, to read the words of young men and women who did not want to die--as one of the men put it in his final letter home, "I didn't die doing what I love to do, but what I am proud to do"--and for a Marine mom, to read the words of a son's friend, to see snapshots of the men posing in places my own son walked, knowing it could have been him…is a pain, a sorrow that I cannot begin to describe to anyone who has not known it.

Knowing that he will carry this burden with him to the end of his days--as will they all--is an added "clenched feeling in your chest."

As I wrote in my post, "I Want to End the War Too, But Troops Are Warriors, Not Children," it is important for peace activists everywhere to understand that nothing about this war is black and white, and we must always be sensitive to the feelings of those who are grappling with their own sorrow, those who fought bravely and buried their friends, that their service is not, and has not been, a waste.

Find a way to bring them home, yes. But always, always honor their service, and their terrible, terrible sacrifice.

In his final letter, LCpl. Lance Graham, 26, wrote, "Know that I did not die in vain or for some worthless cause. I died in memory of all those who gave their lives before me. We are fighting for those who can't fight for themselves, and I think that is the right thing to do. Not all the people here are bad. So please don't fill your hearts with anger and hate."

When I had read the entire issue from cover to cover, including Fareed Zakaria's fine essay on why the Democratic insistence on Iraqis meeting benchmarks if they want our troops to remain is a GOOD idea, and long overdue…I blew my nose, washed my face, got myself together, squared my shoulders.

And then, I called my son.