It is always somewhat artificial, frequently absurd, and sometimes outright grotesque, whenever the media commemorates, however briefly, an anniversary of something. Some things can be more or less justified, i.e., Armistice Day, end of World War II, 911 attacks, etcetera.

But the 4000^th American to die in Iraq? Give us a break. First, why is number 4000 more important than 3999 or 4001?

More importantly if we are talking about Americans why not include those who worked for private military and security contractors. They may not have been soldiers but they served their country. Bear in mind that the military deliberately involved the private sector in its logistics support via its Logistics Civil Augmentation (LOGCAP) program so KBR truck drivers are as much a part of the war effort as an Army quartermaster. If we include them we reached 4000 at least a year ago.

And if the measure of the Iraq War is casualties why do we not include Iraqis? Doubtlessly Iraqis wish that the sum total of fatalities they suffered since the U.S. invaded in 2003 was only 4000. When you figure in direct and indirect deaths, resulting from violence, disease, destroyed infrastructure their total is far beyond ten times that figure. It may even approach one hundred times that.

Let’s also not forget the military forces of other coalition nations in Iraq whose soldiers have died in Iraq.

But as long as we are talking about numbers let’s consider a few others. As Eugene Robinson noted in the Washington Post yesterday:

First, the war did end once, an occasion Bush marked nearly five years ago in his “Mission Accomplished” speech; according to Associated Press, 97 percent of the 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq came after Bush stood on the deck of that aircraft carrier and declared major combat operations over.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that a report prepared for the Veterans Affairs Department found that the percentage of veterans not in the labor force — because they couldn’t find jobs, stopped looking for work, or went back to school — jumped to 23% in 2005 from 10% in 2000. Half of the young veterans — ages 20 to 24 — with steady employment earned less than $25,000 per year.

And as Mideast Stars and Stripes reported yesterday the number of wounded coming to the 435th Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility at Ramstein Air Base Germany is nearing 44,000 patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom and is close to reaching 7,000 from Operation Enduring Freedom, according to Air Force statistics compiled this month. Nearly 11,000 of those patients — or 22 percent — are considered battle injuries. While American commanders and soldiers have pointed to signs that the troop “surge” in Iraq is working, the facility has not seen a dramatic drop in the number of overall patients.

Or consider what Ralph Peters, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, wrote in the New York Post yesterday. He supports the war in Iraq. I do not. But as a veteran I agree with him when he writes:

With all-too-rare exceptions, our politicians, right or left, really don’t give a damn about our troops. Polls matter, grunts don’t.

Oh, the pols spout all sorts of rhetoric about how much they honor those in uniform, but they really only value our troops as tools of partisan policies or for photo ops.

Between the incumbent president and his would-be replacements, only one has served in uniform or had a son or daughter serve in uniform. If military service is so praiseworthy, why don’t more pols encourage their own kids to sign up? I’ll tell you why: They regard our troops as second-raters who couldn’t get into Harvard Law or a master’s program at Yale.

It’s the Leona Helmsley approach to policy: Our troops are the “little people.”

Meanwhile, it was reported yesterday that troop levels in Iraq would remain nearly the same [this would be after the completion of withdrawal of the five surge brigades by the end of July] through 2008 as at any time during five years of war, under plans presented to President Bush in a video briefing by Gen. David H. Petraeus, and the diplomat, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. The briefing took place on the day when the 4,000th American military death of the war was reported so now the media can look forward to celebrating the 5000^th American fatality.