Alternet: As Iraq Casualties Mount, So Do The Stories We Must Tell

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http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=304254052&url_num=5&url=http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/49368

As Iraq Casualties Mount, So Do the Stories We Must Tell

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted March 19, 2007.

Four years ago we invaded Iraq and today the occupation continues. A new project is working to tell the stories of the service members whose lives have been lost -- in the words of the people who loved them.

Spc. Jamaal Addison's mother describes him as an angel. He died on the fourth day of the Iraq war at the age of 22. "He was a hero," she said. "But he was a hero long before he ever got killed in this war."

Her words could also speak for the thousands of others killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq that began four years ago today. Jamaal's story is one of many captured by a new, on-line video project called Iraq Veterans Memorial -- the latest from director Robert Greenwald and the folks at Brave New Films.

"While making Iraq for Sale, we were inspired and moved by the soldiers we interviewed. They were young, very smart and extremely patriotic. When we realized the fourth anniversary of the war was approaching we wanted to do something to honor people like them who were not lucky enough to return home," said Tracy Fleischman of Brave New Films.

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The videos provide a human face, not just of those who have been killed, but of the people they left behind -- brothers and sisters, parents, children, friends, lovers, cousins, comrades. The men and women who were killed were more than service members -- in the words of those who loved them -- they were leaders, ambassadors, peacemakers, superheroes, poets, artists, athletes, dreamers, and jokers.

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