Just One

When I go to a restaurant solo and the host says, “Just one?”, I will usually tease, “JUST one? Is that not enough? Do you have a two-person minimum?” My reaction was in a slightly less humorous vein when I was listening to the news Sunday, and a commentator wrapped up the report on yet another Middle East bloodbath with “Just one American soldier was killed.”

JUST one? Like that wasn’t enough? Or it was barely significant enough for her to even waste the oxygen to expel the information? I wonder if that soldier’s mother, upon hearing the news thought, “Oh well. It was just one.” How many tears will be wept this week and this year over that “just one”? How many lives had that “just one” touched, and how many of those will be unalterably changed because of that moment when “just one American soldier was killed”?

Maybe it hit a particular nerve due to the phenomenon of 'when one person dies it's a tragedy, when 10,000 die, it's a statistic'. All I know was that suddenly "just one" seemed up-close and personal, and the tragedy was in the depersonalization.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20080/