8 Americans Added To Memorial Day Remembrances

This Memorial Day weekend is seeing the addition of 8 more fallen soldiers to the many being remembered at ceremonies around the nation. The figures will continue to rise as the surge and new strategy of getting out of the protected compounds and taking the fight to the insurgents escalates.
I saw General Petraeus on a news program yesterday and he acknowledged that it could be a bloody summer.
The news report included the following information about troop casualties:
Nearly a 1000 United States troop have been killed since last Memorial Day and in the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now three and a half months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.
As more American soldiers are patrolling the streets and living in isolated outposts across Baghdad, leaving them more vulnerable to attack. The increase in raids on extremist Shiite militiamen had brought a wave of retaliatory attacks.
It was further stated that by the end of Saturday at least 100 American troops had died in the first 26 days of May, an average of 3.85 deaths a day. At that deadly pace, 119 troops will have died by the end of the month, the most since 137 soldiers were killed in November 2004, when U.S. troops were fighting insurgents in Fallujah.
As of Saturday, May 26, 2007, at least 3,451 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,817 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military.
On Monday, Bush will mark his sixth Memorial Day as a wartime president with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. He is to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns to honor those who have died in past and current conflicts.
In his weekly radio address he personalized the death of a young man from Ohio and his desire to not let his sister and brother grow up in fear. The link below will take you to the full story of Bush’s comments.
There are many moving ceremonies taking place to honor the sacrifices of those who paid the price of freedom with their lives. I hope that we demand of our politicians that these men and women did not die in vain.

Bush radio story