I have looked at the face of every service person killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. How? I watch PBS’s NewsHour every night and tape it when I am out. The NewsHour is the only TV news program that shows pictures of each of the service personnel killed in Iraq.

I have learned to tell immediately if the night’s show includes the tribute to the dead. If Jim Lehrer or another anchor fails to say, after the recap of the news, “We’ll see you online and again here tomorrow evening…” then expect the logo world to spin and the anchor to announce: “And again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs are made available. Here, in silence, are ____more.” Then the photos begin appearing. Most of the NewsHour’s “Honor Roll” segments are archived here.

I have a tiny black and white TV in the kitchen and sometimes I cook dinner while listening to this TV like a radio. But if those words are uttered, I race to the den and sit down so I can look at these pictures. Information accompanying the pictures includes name, rank, age and hometown. The pictures are kept on the screen long enough to look at the picture and absorb all the information. Most evenings my eyes fill with tears as I watch pictures of Marines in their colorful dress uniforms, soldiers in the jaunty berets, others in desert fatigues and some in jeans and shirts.

I cry for those who are still teenagers or just 20. I think about how their parents reared them and then lost them barely into adulthood. For those in their 30s and 40s I think about how they have left children behind and how their wives will be faced with rearing these children alone. Some of the young ones are lieutenants and captains. I wonder if they worked hard to get into one of our military academies to graduate with a commission. I notice that many are Hispanics. How many of these joined up to get citizenship as their bonus? There are young women too. I wonder why they decided to join the military and what job they were doing when they died. Most of the fallen are from small towns where the military probably seemed the only good job option available.

Just last week, there were 16 honored one night and 20 the next. July 4^th there were 20 and July 5, 11.

This Week, on ABC, also includes a listing of the same information, but without photographs. There are three names to a screen, which roll by so quickly that it is impossible to read the information for the third name. I have e-mailed that show saying that there is no point in showing these names if viewers don’t have a chance to read them. I got no response. The names still zoom by. These segments are archived on the ABC web site here.

Pictures and information of the fallen are available on various other news Web sites, including The Washington Post and the New York Times.

As citizens we have not been asked for any sacrifices whatever to help this war effort. The least we can do is recognize our dead and think about their sacrifice. But television viewers who do not watch the NewsHour will only see sporadic coverage of a few of these dead soldiers. They deserve more. Had the other news channels given them the coverage they deserve, I suspect the war would have ended by now.