By: Rowan Wolf of Uncommon Thought Journal
The Independent’s headline reads: Soldier 3,000: His name is Dustin Donica. His number haunts the US. My first response was – not if nobody knows about it. My second – who is talking about it?
Specialist Dustin Donica was 22 years old and came from Spring, Texas – near Houston. He died from “small arms fire” on December 28, 2006 while on a “counter-insurgency operation” in Baghdad.
Apparently, the military did not realize that Dustin Donica was the 3000th soldier who had died when they notified his family. The family found out that bit of information on the internet after a steady stream of reporters showed up at their door.
Which brings us back to the “haunting” question. I agree, that the death of Dustin Donica is a “milestone” – at least an official one. Unofficially, it is likely we passed that number of dead troops some time ago. However, in order for this information to be haunting, the public needs to know about it. If people don’t know, then there is no significance; no remembering – much less “haunting.” So I did a google news search on Dustin Donica. Who was this stream of reporters and what did get published?
The Independent mentioned at the top of this article;
The LA Times posted this on the “Military Deaths” page along with 12 other troops who had died:
Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas; specialist, Army. Donica was killed Dec. 28 when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Baghdad. He was the 3,000th U.S. troop to be killed in the war in Iraq. Donica was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division at Ft. Richardson, Alaska.
Postcrescent.com – a Wisconsin site – had a brief piece in their editorial week in review;
At OpEdNews-PA, writer Steve Young has been writing about every 100th service member who dies;
There are several from Texas papers: Galveston; Houston, KWTX, Dallas.
Then there are a smattering from Alaska where Fort Richardson is located, and other from small papers and radio stations from other states (Nevada, Iowa, Illinois). Mostly rural America.
CNN has not covered it.
ABC has not covered it.
CBS has not covered it.
FOX has not covered it.
Washington Post has not covered it.
Washington Times has not covered it.
The New York Times has not covered it.
MSNBC included it under an article titled Sunni anger spills into Iraq streets, and the AP put out a piece picked up by some papers (ie Spokesman Review).and an array of British papers covered it.
The general pattern of who did and did not report on the death of Dustin Donica is telling. Rural America, and the home of the brigade were informed. A handful of others in the US were generally informed if you read through lists of obituaries, or through a given editorial or news story. It is clear that the controllers of the “media” don’t want people to think overly much about this. They don’t want the 22 year old Dustin Donica’s face (or anyone else’s) associated with the 3000th death. That would make it all too real.
The Donica’s said that 8 or 9 reporters were at their door within an hour of the notification (Independent). So obviously this was newsworthy. It just never made the news.
The following picture of Specialist Dustin Donica is from the Berliner Morgenpost.
My condolences to the family and friends of Dustin Donica, and to all those who will never have the opportunity to know or live him. He was not just a number – which is what such deaths have become – but a young man serving his country in a manufactured war. Should his death, or any of the tens of thousands of others – U.S. or Iraqi – haunt us? They certainly should. Will they? Not as long as they are just a number with no face, no name, no life.
Note: The picture is labeled in google images as “Dustin R. Donica ist der 3000 …” The article link is http://www.morgenpost.de/desk/1162458.html, though it is restricted to subscribers.
