Ohio remembers--and understands--its Marines.

Don't you dare forget the Marines of the Third Battalion, Twenty-fifth Regiment. Daniel Henninger of OpinionJournal helps with this story of remembrance.

BROOK PARK, Ohio--Over the weekend of Aug. 6, a steady line of cars and motorcycles pulled off Smith Road here to visit the fence that stands in front of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Center. The small brick building beyond the fence is the headquarters for Third Battalion, 25th Regiment--"the 325th." The fence had become a spontaneous memorial tribute to 19 Marines from the 325th, most of them from Ohio, who were killed near the Euphrates River in western Iraq last week. Across the weekend, planes were landing with the returning bodies at Hopkins Airport in Cleveland.
The politics of the Iraq war wasn't much on view amid the memorial fence's American flags, flowers, football jerseys, photographs, poems and Marine memorabilia. But someone had decided to put down on the ground an article published just three weeks ago in the News-Herald, a nearby newspaper. "All I can ask," wrote Marine Cpl. Jacob Arnett, who is still on duty in Iraq, "is that the American people be given more than the bombings and daily death toll, because we are giving much more than that for Iraq."
A recurring question raised about the American military these days is whether our current "professional" army of volunteers, like those from the 325th, is somehow estranged from the general population. The Pentagon, for its part, wants no part of the army that served in Vietnam, drafted out of the general population. It prefers the dedication and commitment of soldiers who have volunteered.
For all that, I think Cpl. Arnett raises an important question, one with implications that will extend beyond this time in Iraq. He had written in the News-Herald that "we are giving much more" in Iraq than the news of combat deaths and bombings would suggest. The "much more" to his mind includes the millions who voted in Iraq's first real election, the Shia and Kurds who no longer have to fear death from Saddam's regime, and the memory left behind of American Marines protecting the families and neighborhoods of Iraqis who are trying to rebuild their country.
The question is whether back home it is possible for people who, unlike in any previous war, absorb real-time after-battle accounts in the papers and on television of mainly violence and death. Does the "we are giving much more" part get overwhelmed and over time, washed out? Opinion polls, whatever their value, suggest that in Iraq the "much more" is indeed getting washed away beneath daily, graphic, meticulously reported accounts of combat death.