Names and ages and hometowns and outfits. Had they been prisoners of war, their captors would have been able to gather more information than that, legally.

Did they have siblings? Children? What did they like to do during their time off? Did any of them draw, or write, or sing, or dance? Did they all hope to make a military career, or was this a stopping point on the way to other ambitions?

Who were they?

If the pro-war side hopes to present themselves as the ones who care more, it would be appropriate to write about these young men as human beings rather than as props whose "answers are invariably the same". You know they weren't. They couldn't be. They were individuals, from different parts of the country, with unique ways of expressing themselves. They themselves were unique. And now they are lost to us, especially to the people who loved them. They will never bring their unique talents and viewpoints home again.

One side calls them by number. The other side calls them by name, and then treats them like numbers, more or less interchangeable, "invariably the same".

The side that supports the war says the dead have their respect. Fine. More than the side that doesn't? I wonder. Their memorial here tells us nothing more personal than statistics, but beats the drum for a valience undescribed except that it's just like every other soldier's.

They're dead. Would it be too much to memorialize the people they were, even only a little, so that more than a name and a number will remain? Would that really have been too much trouble?

Soldiers' Sacrifice Needs Recognition by Leroy Sievers. Broadcast on Morning Edition, NPR, August 16, 2005.