On June 15, White House Press Secretary and former FOX News anchor Tony Snow was asked about President George W. Bush's reaction to the fact that the 2,500th American soldier had been killed in Iraq.
"It's a number," he said.
But for 13 grieving families on the Niagara Frontier, and thousands of others across the country, Snow's "number" is something much more personal. It's a son or a daughter, a husband, wife, father or mother who died on a faraway battlefield for reasons even the people who sent them there have difficulty explaining.
Staff Sgt. Aram Bass, 25, a standout basketball player at Niagara Catholic High School, had already served a hitch in the Marine Corps before enlisting in the Army. He told his wife, Breanne Sterner-Bass, that the training he'd received as a Marine would be helpful to those already serving in Iraq.
Serving with the 101st Airborne Division, he participated in the heavy fighting around Baghdad that continues to this day. But he still found time to call his young wife several times a week.
Bass was killed in Baghdad on Nov. 23, 2005. Breanne Sterner-Bass got the news the night before Thanksgiving. While officials first said he died while helping wounded comrades after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated, they changed their story a couple of weeks later, saying he was the victim of friendly fire.
Another victim of friendly fire was 26-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Eric Orlowski of Buffalo, who was killed on March 22, 2003. Orlowski left behind a young daughter, his parents and four siblings.
Nobody in the Buffalo Fire Department thought of Staff Sgt. Christopher Dill as a number. A reservist who served in Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s, the 32-year-old Dill was a firefighter who had a passion for helping people.
In Iraq, he was assigned to help train the newly formed Iraqi army, sometimes leading the indigenous soldiers in combat. In 2004, he received the Bronze Star for valor while leading a mission in Fallujah.
He died of gunshot wounds on April 4, 2005, after his unit came under attack in a place called Balad Ruz, leaving behind his wife, Dawn, his parents and two sisters.
Flags flew at half-staff at firehouses across the Niagara Frontier.
Sgt. Cari Anne Gasiewicz, 28, had a talent for languages. After joining the Army out of college, she was sent to Korea as a military intelligence analyst. In her spare time, she taught English to Korean orphans.
The Cheektowaga native then learned Arabic and was sent to Iraq.
Gasiewicz called her parents, Paul and Kathleen, as often as possible, her father said.
"She made it a point to contact us like Sunday mornings," Paul Gasiewicz said. "She would contact us and see how we were doing and tell us how she was doing. Just to hear her voice was real nice."
When Cari told her mother she might not make it home in time for Christmas, Kathleen Gasiewicz told her not to worry.
"We were going to keep up the tree and all the decorations for her," she said. "And the family was going to get together and celebrate when she came home in January."
But rather than flying out of Baghdad, the young woman with a gift for languages volunteered to drive a truck down to Kuwait. On Dec. 4, 2004, an IED exploded in the roadway, killing her instantly.
"She's always made us proud of everything she's ever done," her mother said. "She packed a lot into 28 years, a lot more than some people put in a lifetime."
The son of Haitian immigrants, Spec. Jeff LeBrun grew up in Buffalo but left college to join the Army following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. While serving with the 10th Mountain Division, he was killed by an IED in Baghdad on New Years' Day, 2005.
"He was a really, really sweet young man," his mother, Daniela LeBrun, told a reporter. "I am lost now."
Spc. Brian K. Baker, 27, of West Seneca, had been married just 13 months and was the expectant father of twin girls when he was killed by a car bomb on Nov. 7, 2004.
Amy Roach Baker said her husband told her he was filled with a warm feeling when she told him she was pregnant.
"I hope they look like him because I need to see him every day," she said. "I just wish I could feel that right now. I feel so empty."
Then there was Pfc. Charles Bush Jr. of Buffalo, a happy-go-lucky Army cook who fell victim to an IED while manning the door gun of a lightly armored Humvee.
Or Spc. Michael Williams who, at 44, re-enlisted in the National Guard following Sept. 11.
Two years later, on Oct. 17, 2003, the Buffalo native also fell victim to a roadside bomb.
A co-worker remembered him fondly.
"He always had the biggest smile on his face you ever saw," he said.
Sgt. David McKeever, 25, of Buffalo, was on patrol in Baghdad when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle on April 5, 2004. He left behind his parents, a wife and young son.
Pvt. David Evans Jr. of Buffalo was just 18 when a munitions dump he was guarding accidentally exploded, killing him, on May 25, 2003. He told friends before shipping out he had a feeling he might not see them again. He never did see his infant son, who was born shortly after Evans was deployed to Iraq.
Neither did Army Spec. Jacob Pfister. His wife was expecting their first child when he and several comrades were killed by a suicide bomber on the airport road just outside of Baghdad on April 19, 2005. He was 27.
National Guard Pfc. Benjamin Schuster, 21, a Grand Island native, was killed in a firefight near Ramadi on Feb. 25.
And Marine Pfc. Tamario Demetrice Burkett, 21, of Buffalo, died in a firefight near Nasaiyha on March 23, 2003. He was the oldest of seven children and was known to his family and friends as a poet and artist.
Speaking on behalf of the Bush administration, Tony Snow characterized each of these human tragedies as nothing more than numbers. Perhaps that attitude is why two-thirds of the American public now support withdrawal from Iraq in less than a year, and fewer than a third think it was a good idea to go in the first place.
Since Snow made his heartless comment, 32 more brave Americans have been killed. On this July 4 celebration of the birth of our country, let's all take a moment to think about the plight of our troops there and the sacrifices they're making.
And about the political futures of those who put them in harm's way.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 3 2006 |