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Last week, President Bush commemorated the Virginia Tech massacre in his radio address, at the White House correspondents dinner, and in a speech at the college’s convocation. He also ordered that American flags be flown at half-staff for one week.

Today in a “rare opinion article” obtained by ThinkProgress, Army Sgt. Jim Wilt commended the President’s honoring of the Virginia Tech students, but wondered why he — and the American public — don’t pay as much attention to the U.S. troops who die in Iraq every day:

Following the deaths of 32 Virginia Tech students, the President of the United States ordered that all American flags be flown at half-staff for one week. …

But I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. servicemember.

Is the life of Sgt. Alexander Van Aalten, a member of our very own task force, killed April 20 in Helmand province not valued the same as these 32 students? Surely his death was as violent as the students.

Aalten’s death lacked the shock factor of the Virginia massacre. It is a daily occurrence these days to see X number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan scrolling across the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen. People have come to expect casualty counts in the nightly news; they don’t expect to see 32 students killed.

Six U.S. soldiers died on the day of the Virginia Tech shooting. In total, 3312 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq war and 337 in Afghanistan.

Last week, University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole also pointed out that Iraqis have to deal with these types of tragic massacres on a daily basis.

Don't you all think that the american flag should tip its hat to the very ones why die trying to protect it?

I'm not polititcal at all, but this doesn't make mutch sence to me.



If we lowered the flag for one day for every soldier killed, the flag would stay at half mast for 4 years, not counting the casualties after today.

Tell me what you all think!


~Nanaki

You have a point and I can understand the frustration/irritation at it, I feel the service men/women more than deserve the same respects that others do. Although I'm curious as to whether they consider military funerals to be the equivalent and therefore feel they don't need to put the flags at half mast...I honestly have no idea, that was a total shot in the dark. I'd be interested to see others outlooks on this topic or to gain new knowledge on the subject.

It is good that the VT massacre is still recognised as being exceptional, and not just an every day occurrence.

I don't know, but I would not be surprised that the number of gun related deaths of young people each day across the US equal those at VT. Yet these deaths pass by with little media comment.

The same, if not more so is probably true of deaths in traffic accidents.

We as human beings seem able to avoid, or gloss over death so easily. We seem to categorise deaths; compartmentalise them so we mostly don't have to deal with them. They become statistics and not individual tragedies. It's not until they fall out of context, were there is no pre-defined box. then we see them. Then they hurt us and we have to pay attention.

It is as if we want something to happen. Something to help us grieve. And I think we use this time to help us better understand the who we are and understand what it is to be human. We see people, not statistics. We feel the emotions that are normally suppressed. We feel anger and the need to do something.

It is events like the VT massacre that can change the world. On the scheme of things it is small, but it a shock that awakens the passions. Unfortunately war deaths, traffic accidents and general gun crime, mostly don't do this.

That's not to say these other deaths and the statistics don't change the world, but they work more on the slow burn.

Lowering the flag is a way to express grief, or rather support for the grieving. The danger is that after a little while things go back to normal, and the world is unchanged. The debates that were triggered about guns, about religion and society are the really important things. We as humans need this. We need to be decide what is acceptable.

It is almost as if we have accepted the consequences of war and that it equals a number of deaths. Although, too many and we start shouting. But too many is relative. If they are on the 'other side' there's far less concern.

Deaths due to Traffic accidents seems to be accepted by society too.

Events like the VT massacre are different. So the flag get lowered and we, society, finds a new equalibrium.

I think everyone should lower their flag as they see fit, and have violent, interesting arguments with the neighbors over it, like decent Americans! :lol:

Its just simple moral. If you do that everytime a soldier is killed in action, people are going to wonder why their flags are always at half mast. Plus people think that "Its worse than iraq because they were innocent!". Yeah, tell that to the 600,000 dead iraqis.

What he said, an entire week of half mast is a bit much, for only 32 deaths. While the count is still rising in Iraq.

This may be a bit late, but I think the Pres is in a lose-lose situation. Keep the flag up and people will think he doesn't care about VT. Take it down and people will think he doesn't care about Iraq.

Let's face it, we put our leaders in lose-lose situations all the time. I'm not going to get into a "'bush sux' 'no bush rox' 'no bush sux'" argument, so don't tell me your friend heard from a website that Bush ate a baby on a live television that was stolen by the Secret Service, or whatever. The second anyone mentions Bush, there's countless lies on either side of the debate.

Just speaking in general, not about this in specific...

There are hundreds of tragedies every day. There are tragedies people live through, and tragedies people die from. There are those walking around and looking normal that are dead inside. If we wanted an 'equality of treatment' for all tragedies, the flag would never raise past half mast, ever.

But that would be a horribly negative way to approach the world.

When something stands out in the public eye, something particularly shocking, then we react to it with respect. That respect shouldn't be considered to mark this particular incident as somehow 'especially tragic', but instead, it is a show of respect for tragedy in general. It is a periodic reminder, to us, that there are bad things out there in the world that we need to have concern for, a temporary disruption of our normally comfortable and safe little bubbles of lives.

We can't spend all our time in constant fear of the world, but neither should we forget it. That's why we do not treat all tragedies the same.

Exactly. Though all death is a tragedy (even I give my sympathy to Falwell's family), it's the jarring, horrible, rare tragedies that get the flag lowered. Why? War is always going to be going on. The flag would never be at full mast.