Why are we so soft on casualties?

People dying horribly sells print and advertising time. So does outrage over irresponsible teenagers, plastic looking celebs, and a range of other misc issues.

No one is shocked by soldiers dying, but they do find it interesting.

Nullius in verba

Zagros wrote:

Last time I checked being a soldier means you put your life on the line in conflict defending your country (or attacking other people's as the case is). Tragic though any premature loss of life is, sudden death is a very real possibility which men accept when they join-up especially in a professional army as the British one is. So why, when we lose 6 soldiers in a go is it such a huge deal with the same media who cheerleads conflict?

Television and movies. It's one thing to read about it, or hear about it. It's quite another to see it.

Vietnam was brought live into American living rooms. It in part, turned the population against the war. Now the military keeps control of the journalists that accompany our soldiers in a combat zone. The value of the soldier varies from country to country. I have sorrow if a cat or any other animal is run over by a truck or car. Walk in a combat soldiers boots and experience what they do. It may give you a very different outlook. Even one soldier that has given his life for us should be mourned by the nation.

May you live as long as you want to,
and may you want to as long as you live.

Wasn't it Geraldo Rivera (?) (Of all the journalist in the world) who put it best: If it bleeds, it leads.

I think al Jassas has his finger on it.

It's not the death, it's the useless death, the death in vain.

Citizen of Ankh-Morpork.

Never believe anything until it has been officially denied - Sir Humphrey Appleby, 1984.

I think AJ is spot on, but I like Dolphin's point too.

"There was glory in pissing, Corabb decided as he watched the stream curve out and make that familiar but unique sound as it hit the ground." So true.

But I find that the media's hype is actually reflected in most people's attitude in this case.

"There was glory in pissing, Corabb decided as he watched the stream curve out and make that familiar but unique sound as it hit the ground." So true.

Zagros wrote:

But I find that the media's hype is actually reflected in most people's attitude in this case.

A lot of the time, the media is the one that created the hype to begin with. I'm sure there's many things that would have been ignored if the media didn't bring attention to it.

Buckskins wrote:

Even one soldier that has given his life for us should be mourned by the nation.

Doesn't that seem a bit... arbitrary? Call me unsympathetic, but I find it pointless and hard to mourn over a soldier I've never knew in my life and potentially fights for a pretty stupid cause to begin with. After all, from the stories I've heard from soldiers, not all soldiers are exactly pure angels sent from heaven... I mean, the guy I got stories from knew someone who friggin TORTURED Somalian's during his time there. Should I feel sympathy for such a person?