US troops on Memorial Day honored their fallen on two battlefields, one war winding down and another ramping up. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military remembered the toll so far on its troops — more than 4,900 dead — with the outcome still unclear.
In Iraq, soldiers and Marines stood solemnly during a playing of Taps at Baghdad’s Camp Victory. They saluted a memorial of a single helmet propped on a rifle beside a pair of boots.
Thousands of miles away, in the Afghan capital of Kabul, soldiers left mementos at a similar memorial for two comrades who recently died.
PHOTO: AP
“Memorial Day for us is intensely personal,” General David McKiernan, the outgoing US commander in Afghanistan, told a crowd at Camp Eggers.
The training command based there has lost 70 soldiers since last Memorial Day.
“It is the empty seat in the mess hall, the battle buddy who is no longer here, or the friend who did not return from patrol. And it is the commitment to carry on with the mission in their honor,” McKiernan said.
In Iraq, long the main focus of the US’ “Global War on Terror,” the loss has been no less bitter.
“We grieve their loss and we smile at their memory,” Brigadier General Peter Bayer told a crowd of about 100 at Camp Victory on the western outskirts of Baghdad.
But after six years of war and 4,300 dead, the end is in sight in Iraq.
The US’ combat role in the long and painful conflict is to finish by September next year.
Most of the 130,000 troops are expected to go home next year as the US shifts military resources to Afghanistan.
As a first step, US troops are to pull out of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities by the end of next month, leaving security in the hands of Iraq’s own soldiers and police.
It remains unclear, however, whether Iraqi forces are up to the task. Violence may increase.
Bayer reminded soldiers on Monday that the Iraq War may be winding down but is not over. At least 18 US troops have died in Iraq this month — eight of them by hostile fire.
“The message is the mission continues,” Bayer said. “We still have an insurgency here, just as we have an active insurgency in Afghanistan.”
At Camp Victory, Staff Sergeant Bienvenido Celestino, 43, stood by the makeshift memorial, taking a moment to remember those who served and died during his three deployments in Iraq.
“It’s a very painful experience,” said Celestino of Killeen, Texas. “It is something that is always with you ... whether you are here in Iraq or not.”
US troops in Afghanistan, however, now face a growing war against a revived Taliban that has regained much of the ground that it lost to the first US-led offensive in 2001.
While the outlook for US troops in Iraq appears somewhat brighter, there is a growing sense that the war in Afghanistan is not going the US’ way.
Last year 151 US soldiers died in Afghanistan, up from 111 the year before. At least 48 US soldiers have died in Afghanistan this year.
With the war going badly, McKiernan was replaced this month by Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, who led the Special Operations command that was widely credited with breaking the back of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Another 21,000 US troops have started arriving in Afghanistan as part of US President Barack Obama’s plan to bolster troop strength to push back the Taliban.
Officials have said they expect more attacks and more fighting as the new troops take up positions.
Meanwhile, fundraising has begun for a memorial wall in Seattle to honor Japanese-Americans who were interned or served in the military during World War II.
The US$1.2 million effort is led by the Nisei Veterans Committee, which plans to erect the wall outside the Nisei Veterans Hall at the east end of the International District, the Seattle Times reported on Monday.
The group plans to mount as many as 4,000 10cm-by-30cm bricks in the wall, each bearing the name of someone who was interned or served in the military.
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