Embedded With the 101st Airborne

"BEIJI, Iraq

It was candor you don't expect to hear over coffee in the morning - a soldier talking about a dead comrade, a man he knew well and will never see again.

I had the conversation in the logistics center with a group of men who receive the bodies of soldiers in the unit who die in roadside bombings or insurgent attacks. They wait as the bodies come in and help gather a soldier's belongings.

Last week Sgt. 1st Class Jason L. Bishop, 31, of Williamstown, Ky., was killed. The soldiers talked about the media coverage of his death, and they couldn't understand why his life was not as important as his death in the news reports.

Why does America seem so fascinated with the death of soldiers, they asked. They are at war, and soldiers at war die.

The flag-draped coffins that arrive in the United States aren't the untold story of the war - it's the lives of soldiers that need to be remembered.

Sadly they are rarely told, the soldiers say.

The soldiers carry green books to take notes. They are government issued journals with white-lined pages. Bishop had written a letter to his infant son on some of the pages, and the soldiers in Iraq wanted to ensure his wife got the book.

That's what the people at home need to know, they said."
MyWay