Ambivalence about Contractors

For a long time, I was very ambivalent about whether or not to include the contractors in this project. I suppose the ambivalence comes from a few different places. First, there are all the stories about Blackwater that made me want to just stay away from the subject all together. Secondly, these were people who chose to go to this war in a way that military people do not. They are hired, and can quit or be fired. Did it make sense to include these numbers?

I honestly avoided the question for most of last year. I didn't want to make a decision. About a month ago, I started to look at the information on the contractor's deaths. There were 446 known deaths to contractors. As I scan the information I knew I had to include them. Give someone a name and other statistics, and it seemed criminal to exclude them from the project.

As I thought about my decision there was another factor that pushed me towards inclusion. By using contractors, we are hiring out jobs that in previous wars would have been done by our our military forces. By hiring out these jobs, their losses do not show up in the counts. The numbers that we tend to see are being artificial reduced by this tactic of using contractors. Realizing this made it a firm decision for me.

I still don't know what I will fold to represent contractors who lost their lives. Paper printed to look like dollar bills? Vellum in another color? I don't know yet. But, their numbers, as best as they can be known, will be represented.