Some thoughts on numbers

[pecunium]

Night before last I went to church, at the Cathedral in Chavez Ravine. Sadly the Dodgers lost.

But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. As I was eating my Dodger dog, and drinking my Gordon Biersch hefeweizen (which has bannana notes, but there ya' go) I was looking around the stadium.

No, I was thinking of issues of scale.

The official count for the game was 52,000 people, in real terms, it was probably more like 50,000 (season tickets count, so if no one shows up, there will still be a paid attendence in the thousands).

We tend to forget that 50,000 is a lot of people.

There were lots of battles, battles which shaped the course of events (Hasting, Agincourt, Poiters, Pharsalus, Yorktown) had no more than that.

Compared to the massive battles of the US Civil War, World Wars 1, and 2, we tend to lose track of that, to see Armies as masses of faceless figures in khaki. Those who pump the war try to ignore the humanity of the soldiers; to convert them into icons.

Lots of those opposed to the war do the same thing, it's just that the ends are differnt, so the stereotypes are mirrored (the one side sees dupes; poor; or patriotic, slaves to duty, the other sees warriors lusting for glory and certain of victory. The truth is they are people, as varied as the fans at a baseball game. Some came to cheer the Dodgers, some to root for the Mets.

There are 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. 130,000 separate stories, and it's still less than three times the number of people sitting in that small space which is Dodger stadium.

They are responsible for occupying, and pacifying, an area the size of California, with a population of 30 millions.

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

This is in the nature of a quibble, but I'd like to figure out some good way of saying that the 130,000 troops might be being held responsible for occupying and pacifying the country, but in fact are responsible only for doing the best job they possibly and practically can do. Their number is inadequate, their assigned goals and techniques are misguided, and (as far as I can figure out) Responsibility for the failure (as I consider it to be) of our War Against Iraq does not lie with them.

Regrettably, it seems unlikely that those actually responsible will ever be brought to justice.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be very restrained here.

You don't have a clue about this, not one.

TK

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Apologies for my ignorance, but is that 130,000 US soldiers, or 130,000 foreign soldiers in total (i.e. non-Iraqi)? I had no idea of the numbers involved - it seems like an undoable task when you put it that way.

I was watching something about Russia the other day, and I heard (I think) that Napoleon brought 500,000 soldiers to Russia and left with 25,000 after his disastrous campaign. The loss of such numbers seemed impossible to me, or rather, incomprehensible.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's 130,000 US soldiers, but barring the British, that pretty much defines the "coalition" presence.

Poland was a big player, they sent a battalion (i.e. about 1,500) soldiers. Italy sent about 300 (those are gone).

Nappy went to Russia with 600,000 in, La Grande Armée. 60,000 came home.

Most were lost, not to battle, per se, but rather to cold and hunger. The Russians burnt the crops to the ground as he came in. This was only some problem on the way in, leaving, in the winter, harried by cossack and never getting to rest in decent billets, lacking in food, and with no granaries to raid; they died.

If he'd overwintered in Smolensk, he might have pulled it off (or convinced Aleksandr to negotiate; though that's less likely), but the six weeks he dithered (sort of like the month Hitler spent propping Mussolini up in Greece) put paid to the plan.

It also kept him from having troops to face Wellington when he crossed the Pyrenees.

TK

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

There are 130,000 soldiers in Iraq. 130,000 separate stories, and it's still less than three times the number of people sitting in that small space which is Dodger stadium.

The problem is that I don't think people really want to hear their stories. I spent a year trying to tell stories of men and women doing their jobs, thinking that they were making a difference, even a small one...

and I don't think it made a good Goddamn of difference, at least not to the public. To the soldiers? Yeah. To the public? It didn't explode, show dead bodies or support the conclusion that we're all butchers who are fighting a failed war, so it was a blip on the radar.

Yes, I know. You were a part of the journalistic establishment, so we have differing views of them. I'm not sure I'll ever overcome what I dealt with in Iraq, regarding the media, though.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The problem is they don't want to hear those stories about any group.

Look at the narrative of working women... it's all about how they juggle what the stereotype of stay at home, against the "career" woman.

Nickle and Dimed did a better job of showing what really is, but the NYT is still telling us about the women who've got the means to wonder where the "hearth" is, and giving up careers after spending 50 grand to get a degree, and telling us that marks the "growing trend" as if some hidden zeitgeist of women who think a career is second rate (or has to be traded in) are the norm, when what it is, is a group of the privileged exercising it.

Make it more complex (and just as stereotype punching... soldiers aren't supposed to be intelligent, or senistive, or in it for other than desperation... bitter, not at all; why do you ask?), and they are less interested.

And the television press has been complicit in this (the Haircut/Flip-flop/Earthtones/CEO-cowboy/Womanizer/Vice-president /Pointy-headed geek, etc. narratives of the past 30 years of presidential politics are the same problem.

People haven't been demanding more.

[soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm glad my comment didn't offend you. I was a bit worried about that after I'd sent it.

Yeah, John and I have had tons of trouble explaining our choices and trying to get the folx at church/store/airport/wherever to see soldiers as people. Not figures on top of pedestals or Imperial War Monkeys.

As for being in it out of desperation? Eh...I've met a few, but those have been supremely pleased by their time in the Army and have found that they're more than they were when they started BCT.

I can't/won't/don't watch the news any more. After I got back from Iraq, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, BBC, whatever, put me in screaming incoherent tears because I would get so mad. I still shake with rage when I think about Christianne Amanpour and her election day "coverage" in Iraq.

Gah. I'm going to go pet the dog.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Dear, you just warmed the cockles of my heart.

I am, despite some lapses, pretty hard to offend. I don't think you (unless you were going out of your way in presentation to be so) are able to offend me with a reasoned opinion.

But it pleases me that you worry about it.

I don't know how many people (for the past fifteen years) have been shocked that I joined the army. Some of them said things which were offensive; mostly because they didn't think about what was implicit in what they said; I don't care much for being told, even in all innocence of intent, that someone thought I was a monster, by virtue of what I must be willing to do because they couldn't imagine a person who wasn't, having my job, but I digress).

Oddly, I got the same thing when I was a reporter (the cognitive dissonance of some people when I joined the army, having been a reporter... ah, the good old days).

People pigeonhole each other.

I don't watch the news anymore either.

I'm going to go dig up more rocks.