Column: Complacency with war needs to be addressed

A recent free dinner at Paxton's Grill in Loveland for families of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had only about 30 attendees.

The previous two years the restaurant, which seats about 70, had to have two seatings to accommodate all of the guests.It was suggested by a family member of one serviceman that part of the reason for the decline is that Americans have become complacent about the war.

While I found this a little hard to fathom at first, upon reflection I came to the conclusion that the gentleman was right. It was clear that the families of active servicemen at the dinner do not feel this way. They are just as worried for their loved ones as they were when the conflict began.

Nonetheless, there was a certain reservation among them that this war is a way of life for us now and there is nothing we can do about it.

There seemed to be a feeling that Americans will support the troops and let the politicians worry about the politics of the conflict.

With the exception of the occasional "big news" story (the capture of Saddam, etc.), the war is also little more than an afterthought in the media.

The daily update about the number of brave, young Americans killed in battle used to lead off the evening news. Now it is sandwiched between stories about the significance of the new Pope's name and a wayward whale trying to find its way back to the ocean.

A recent evening news story went something like this: "Two more American soldiers were killed in Iraq today in fighting near Fallujah."

That was it.

No reference to who they were, where they were from or anything. It doesn't seem like too long ago that Americans were outraged at every U.S. serviceman killed in action.

Now the reaction seems to be more, "What a shame, pass the salt, please." Have we really become so callous that this war is little more than an afterthought to us?

This is a sharp contrast to the Vietnam War where opposition became stronger as the war dragged on.

The world has changed a lot since then however, and this latest conflict seems to have outlasted our resolve and, sadly, our attention span.

In a country of 24-hour news, even a story as big and important as this does not have the shelf life it used to. The American public expects to be bombarded with a lot of information about a story for a very short period of time, then wants to move on to the next story.

This war filled the first part of the bill, but seemed to drag on a little too long for most Americans.

Consider an example, the case of Army Reservist Pfc. Matt Maupin of Batavia. Last week marked the one-year anniversary of his capture and the Army decided to maintain his "captured" status, instead of changing it to "missing, presumed dead."

The media crush when Maupin was captured, which lasted longer than normal because it was used as a political tool during the presidential election, was incredible. Yet one year later, these two significant events barely created a media ripple.

Keith Maupin, Matt's father, has said he will begin to worry when people stop paying attention to his son's cause. This may have started to happen already.

Regardless of one's politics, this conflict, with soldiers dying virtually every day, is too important to become another forgotten news story.

Americans can care about ending it soon, or they can care about seeing it through, but they must at least continue to care.

Questions or comments?

E-mail opinion@nr.uc.edu.