Over the past month, as the news reported heavily on the Fallujah offensive, and then on the situation with the Marine that shot the insurgent in the mosque, it occured to me that we haven't really been hearing enough about the numbers of casualties on the coalition side. Why is that? Why is it we can hear all about everything that goes 'wrong', or could be negative, but hardly anything about how difficult it is for the Coalition soldiers. Sure, we see the names of the fallen come up on the screens during newscasts but after a while, it almost gets the feeling of another commercial. The media doesn't let us think of this as anything more than statistics. We'll hear 4 marines were killed today in a roadside bombing, but even that after a while, loses it's impact.

I read a blog the other day (can't for the life of me remember where) of an Iraqi person asking why we found beheadings so intolerable. It made me sad. I don't ever want to live in a world where this type of torture and cruel treatment passes for just another statistic.

I did a little experiment over the past 16 days. On November 6, I went and jotted down the number of fallen soldiers and wounded based on CNN's Casualties report. Then today, I wrote the numbers down again and did some very quick statistics.

On November 6, 1134 US soldiers had been lost. Now, just over 2 weeks later, that total is 1228. 94 men and women have died as a result of direct enemy combat in this short period of time! This is not a small number! It averages nearly 6 a day. A full mini-van of people every single day!

There have also been losses for the other countries in the coalition, 1 Brit, 2 Thais and 9 (NINE!) Ukranians.

Looking at the wounded category now - it was 8287 just 2 weeks ago and now it's at 8956. An increase of 669 men and women who have had significant enough of an injury to make it on the casualties list. Nearly 700 people? That's an entire packed movie theatre or a maybe a nightclub! Look at it another way, it's 42 people a day get sent for significant medical treatment.

Imagine the space nearly 800 people take up...it's not insignificant. These are your brothers, your husbands, your wives, your cousins, your neighbour down the street. These are not just numbers. And in just a two week span - 1 pay period!

These numbers astounded me and make me very sad. Why does the mainstream media not focus on this, rather than the armchair critiquing it's doing now? If we are going to have embedded media, the whole story must be told. Not just bits and pieces and quick soundbites to grab a headline. It's a disservice to those men and women who have put their lives on hold, and gone to do their duty in Iraq.