All Blog Posts from World Watch

Eight more troops were killed today in Afghanistan, bringing us to 53 dead this month –the highest toll so far in the eight-year-old war. It comes in advance of yet another meeting the president is holding to decide about his Afghan war strategy. He'll meet with the joint chiefs, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday.

But while many in the blogosphere and the 24-hour media universe – as well as former White House officials – denounce the meetings as dithering, a group of servicemen here in Florida indicated they believe otherwise.

Addressing servicemen and women at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, President Obama said, "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary." The remark prompted rancorous applause.

I sure didn't see it coming. But I should have. I've heard it enough from friends and contacts in the military and the diplomatic corps: "Let's not rush headlong into this like we did with Iraq. Not again."

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Fallen Airman Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers has the grim honor of being the first to be filmed coming home – now that the Obama administration has lifted an 18-year ban on news coverage of the returning war dead at Dover Air Force Base.

Staff Sgt. Myers’ family gave their permission for the media to record the silent, solemn ceremony. A six-man carry team lifts the fallen man or woman’s transfer case of remains from the plane to a waiting vehicle. The remains go through a formal autopsy and identification process, and are then sent onward, with an officer escorting them on the journey, for final honors and the funeral.

Staff Sgt. Myers was from Hopewell, Va. The 30 year old had been decorated for outstanding service as a military technician, and he’d been awarded a Bronze Star last year, for a previous tour in Iraq.

Now his return to the United States will be marked, noted and remembered in a way few casualties are of late, in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, that have extended far beyond the U.S. public’s average attention span - or the U.S. media’s, for that matter. We all share the blame in that. Dover Air Force press officers have been besieged with phone calls from the press, for the “first one.”

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