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Four more Americans dead today

We all grieve for the men who die or are severely injured while fighting. Greater love than this no man hath...

Let's also take a look at snippets of actions the 36th Infantry -- the Texas T-Patchers -- participated in...

The landing at Salerno: September, 1943

The British and Americans had held the beachead, and moving reinforcing divisions inland. They [British and Americans] had taken over 13,700 casualties in 11 days of brutal combat. [snip]
This assault force consisted of the green, but well trained 36th Texas National Guard Infantry Division.[snip]
The 36th Infantry bled heavy from fighting an enemy who possessed a plethora of support weapons, and machine guns firing at a rate of over 1,000 rounds a minute from dominating elevated terrain. Regardless, the 36th Infantry Div. managed to clear some enmy positions to create a small enclave for follow on forces. A toehold had been secured in Italy, but a shaky one [snip]
[September 15th, 1943]-- Multiple battalions of German armored vehicles and tanks came streaming into the perimeter letting loose with devastating fire preceded by a severe German artillery bombardment. The American infantry were stunned, and shattered. Survivors came trickling back with cries of desperation, and horror stories.

See also, http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/salerno/sal-dday.htm

"Four more Americans dead today and the insurgents control Fallujah and Hanson, ever the starry eyed Wilsonian, thinks we are "winning." It is advice from people like Hanson which got us into this hopeless mess."

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Gosh, Austin, I guess you're right! 4 dead just broke our backs! No army in all of world history has ever survived the loss of 10% of a platoon! Time to cut and run! Glad you Buchananites were in a tiny minority back in the early 40's!

(From a guy with a brother in the Army who could get sent at any time...)

...the insurgents control Fallujah...

By the way, chicken little, who controls the other 8000 towns and villages in Iraq? Or is that just a minor detail not worthy of mention because it might tend to be, heaven forefend, positive news?

And you might profit (though I doubt it) from reading this email from an American Marine outside Fallujah:

As far as Falluja goes, we have not been allowed to get back in there with any real numbers yet. Initially, it was confounding. However, a very interesting dynamic has developed. Since we have stayed out of Falluja and focused elsewhere, the mujahadeen have had their run of the town. As they have had no one to fight, they have turned their criminal instincts on the citizens. The clerics who once were whipping these idiots into a suicidal frenzy are now having to issue Fatwas (holy decrees) admonishing the muj for extortion, rape, murder and kidnapping. It is unfortunate for the "innocent people" of Falluja but the mujahadeen have betrayed themselves as the thugs that they are by brutalizing the civilians. There are, in fact, reports of rape, etc from inside the town. While the muj are thugging away inside the town, we are about 1/2 mile away paying claims, entering into dialogue and contracting jobs. The citizens come outside the city for work and money and are treated like human beings. They go back inside and enter a lawless hell. In short, the muj have done more to show the people what hypocrites they are in a few short weeks than we could have hoped for in a year. The result is more and more targetable intelligence. If we are given the green light, we can really go to town on these guys (no pun intended). However, as much as we would like to do just that, the optimal solution is to empower the Iraqis to take care of it themselves. That is precisely what we are doing.

Four more Americans dead today

I forgot to mention the statistic my husband often alludes to...deaths due to one day of battle at Antietam .

No one knows the actual number of men who would later die of their wounds or the number of missing who had been killed. If you take a conservative estimate of 20% of the wounded dying of their wounds and 30% of the missing killed, the approximate number of soldiers that died as a result of this battle [Antietam, September 17th, 1862] are 7,640.