Going beyond the death toll or How I have learned to deal with the news

Wendy at All Ahead Full posted the other day wondering if she was going to become a news junkie now that the GWOT is hitting home for her. Her post -- and Slightly Salty's comment about only being able to take so much of the violent news at a time -- really got me thinking.

I try to follow what's going on in Iraq closely -- well, as closely as possible for a person who is trying to 15 other things at once. It took me a while to get there, to that emotional place where I could read about the violence, the death, the destruction.

When Jack Bauer got to Iraq, I just wasn't in a space where I could handle the news about Iraq. I was barely keeping it together in my day to day life. In fact, it took several months after he got there for me to be able to start to learn about what was going on, to start to seek out information about the war, to go beyond the death toll, the tragic and painful stories of local Soldiers coming home in flag-draped coffins.

When I started posting the "Good News from Iraq" shortly after I started the blog, I did it as a mental exercise, a way to prove to myself in a tangible way that there was in fact something good going on in that country. To prove to myself that there was more to the story than the daily death toll I'd hear reported on the local news.

I slowly added to what I was reading. (My pesky day job was v.e.r.y s.l.o.w there for months on end, thus, lots of reading and blogging time.) Jack pointed me in the direction of The Fourth Rail -- which is now The Long War Journal -- as a good place to learn what was actually happening on ground in Iraq. He was right, of course. I added in more conservative commentary. That actually helped me feel more balanced and armed to read not only more liberal media report but to also discuss Iraq with anyone who raised the topic.

There are days when I just want to take a break from it all. Forget about the war. Not read, not hear, not see anything having to do with this war. Most Americans have the luxury of doing that any day that want to. Us military families cannot really do that.