Fallen troops

Any troop can get killed, thinks Steve, a Vietnam veteran in The Dinner Party, one of the tales in my short story collection Leaving The Alamo. So why should being killed be enough to make you a military hero? He concludes the reason is that, nowadays, fewer and fewer Americans are willing to risk a military death.

And so Our Fallen Soldier, a website by the family of a soldier with California, Texas and Oregon ties, who was killed in Iraq at age 23, makes sense. For once the rollcall of the dead is not a protest gimmick, but a true memorial to American heroes–until something better comes along.