Most mornings, I wake to the familiar voices on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” news program. Typically, I don’t have to wait long for foreign correspondents Anne Garrels or Peter Kenyon to announce the day’s body count in Iraq. The day’s dead in Iraq is still considered somewhat big news on National Public Radio.

The lifeless bodies being tallied on the morning news show were once inhabited by the working minds of Iraqi politicians, Sunni clerics, Iraqi policemen and civilians, foreign nationals from countries like the Philippines or Turkey, aid workers like Marla Ruzicka — the 28-year-old founder of the Campaign for Innocent Victims of Conflict, Halliburton employees and American soldiers. Globalization has touched the conflict in Iraq, and victims from around the world are losing their lives.

After the day is finished, I return home in the evening and watch the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on Iowa Public Television. At the end of the “NewsHour”, the faces of young American soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan flash across the screen. There is a moment of silence as the names of the fallen soldiers are read aloud.

According to the Des Moines Register there have been 29 Iowa soldiers who have died in Iraq or Afghanistan since the war started in March 2003. Causes of death include: enemy fire, Humvee accidents, roadside bomb explosions, helicopter accidents, mortar attacks — the grim list goes on. What happens to the soldiers who don’t die? What happens to the wounded?

Nina Berman is a photographer who recently published a book titled “Purple Hearts.” In that book, she focuses her camera lens on the wounded American soldier. It was difficult for Berman to find a publisher for her book because the soldiers’ images she captured with her camera were images of weakened soldiers — blind, mutilated, amputated or psychologically devastated images of once strong soldiers who could no longer fight. These were not the war heroes people want to see.

Berman described why she photographed these wounded soldiers on the National Organization for Women’s Web site.

“I didn’t want to photograph them in public situations. I wanted to avoid the homecoming parades or the pinning of the medals by generals. I didn’t want to do any of the spectacles about the glory of war, or anything in this regard. I wanted to do something really personal,” she said.

The personal aspect of death and war became more apparent when I learned that my classmate at Iowa State, Andrew, would soon be joining the Air Force. Andrew often sat across the table from me in a journalism course, and I would admire the definition and strength of the muscles in his upper arms during the class. The perfection of his soldier’s body, trained to preserve and protect the homeland, appeared to be absolute and impenetrable.

I never told Andrew, but I was secretly relieved that he would be flying planes in the Air Force and secretly relieved that he would be high above roadside bombs or mortar attacks on the ground. I wondered, however, how Andrew’s father, mother or siblings would feel if such a handsome and physically perfect young man was sent home from battle with only one leg, no vision or permanently confined to a wheelchair. I hope with all my heart that this will never happen, but it is a possibility.

Death and wounds are the costs of war. Blind, mutilated, amputated and psychologically devastated soldiers return to the United States every month. These soldiers are tortured and confused by their malfunctioning bodies and battle-fatigued minds. The rhetoric of war is bravery, courage and patriotism. The reality of war is tears, death and the wounded.