The soldier's sacrifice

On the online Web site militarycity.com, 20-year old Army Spc. Dennis J. Ferderer, Jr. from North Dakota is listed as one of the most recent fatalities in the war on Iraq. His young life was cut short on Nov. 2 when enemy forces threw a hand grenade at his Humvee in Duluiyah, Iraq.

At 20 years of age myself, the loss of Ferderer's entire future is mind blowing, and I don't even know him.

As college students, busy with our own day-to-day responsibilities, it can become easy to push aside and not seriously think about the struggles and sacrifices young people like ourselves are facing overseas, especially if we don't specifically know anyone enlisted in the military.

Veteran's Day, Nov. 11, was renamed as national Remembrance Day in 1954 for a reason.

Most of us have fallen prey to letting Veteran's Day slide by without giving it a second thought. As children, it is simply associated with a day off from school. As college students, when we're busy, and if we haven't experienced it ourselves, thinking about war and death can become too complicated for our limited cognitive abilities to even begin to comprehend.

Of the over 150,000 U.S. troops that have been sent overseas since the war began on March 19, 2003, there have been 2,045 American deaths, 1,640 of which occurred in combat. It is estimated that over 15,000 have been wounded. It is rare that a soldier will not suffer mental psychiatric implications from the experiences of war.

Last semester I had the privilege of interviewing a few of UB's student soldiers, some of whom had spent an extended period of time overseas, and some who had yet to see beyond a training camp.

I admired them, and not just from the standpoint of a girl swooning over a tough man in uniform. They had each joined for different reasons. They liked to put up a macho front of bravery as they recalled their stories-as they proved they were-but there was always an underlying hint of fear. Facing the possibility of death at 20 years of age, like Ferderer did, will do that to a person.

Even soldiers that never see combat, as depicted in this weekend's blockbuster, "Jarhead," deserve to be recognized.

Veteran's Day shouldn't be limited to the sacrifices of military members past and present, but also to the victims and those affected by the destruction of war.

To be considered truly enlightened intelligent people, we should not only think of Veteran's Day in terms of the loss of American soldier's lives. During times of conflict with other countries it is a function of war to dub "good sides" and "bad sides." American war movies always depict war from our viewpoint. We become desensitized right along with the movie, and because we become emotionally invested in the plight of the character, barely flinch when "the enemy" is blown to bits.

The soldiers of the opposing side become almost non-human. Our ethnocentric tendencies are kicked into gear, and because they are unfamiliar, and not like us, it becomes easy to forget that they are people too, with families and pride in their countries, regardless of the political nature of the war.

It isn't clich?(c) when it is said there is a high price for going to war.

When we think about the current actions in Iraq, as well as the American soldiers that are stationed in countries around the world, the focus can tend to be put on only American deaths.

The current estimated number of Iraqi civilian death is 30,163. The estimated number of wounded is 48,235.

As one war replaces another throughout history, we have fallen into the post-war trap of reverting to a time of peace where citizens leave foreign policy to the politicians. Veterans become a part of the category of "foreign" and are there to smile at when they march proudly in parades, but otherwise forgotten.

Because of my youth, I can only truly relate to the soldiers of today. Some of them are young, like us. While we attend school and worry about trivial matters, they are facing the writing out of their wills or being shot at.

I admire their courage, and dread the day we hear they have made the ultimate soldier's sacrifice, like 20-year-old Dennis Ferderer.