The Iraq Page is my effort to make a memorial to the Coalition Soldiers who have fought and died in the Iraq War. What follows is a brief description of how I get my information and the criteria I use for inclusion of material (including comments) on the site.

Pictures -- recently the number of people who have been posting links to pictures from this site on their sites has ballooned.  So to protect my bandwidth I have instituted measures to stop linking.  If you want to use a photo, then save it on your computer and upload it to your server and link to it there.  It is considered bad netiquette to hot link.  So be a good net citizen and serve your own pictures.

If you are interested in how the site came into being or information about me, Tomw, personally follow this link. I also have a helper, River97, who has been helping keep the site up to day a lot. You can find out about him here. Another contributer is James Van Thach, a Captain in the United States Army. You can find out about him here

If you would like to contact me you can email me here.

First, I donate the server space and bandwidth and spend at least one hour a day during the work week (often two) maintaining the site and keeping it up to date. My intention is to keep the site up for as long as I live and hopefully I can find someone or some group who will continue it even after I am gone. I have no helpers, except for a few faithful users who send me article links and pictures from time to time. I am gratefull for this small help. I have had a couple of volunteers, but they did not last long -- the work is tedious and the reward small. Note that I donate the server space and bandwidth for the Afghanistan page but do not maintain it. Another volunteer has maintained it from the beginning.

I wish I had the resources to list citizen contractors and the wounded, but I have found no real source for this information and do not have the time to collate the information from the web.

With that all out of the way -- here is what I do:

Every morning during the work week, first thing I check the newest comments and delete those I feel inappropriate. Things I look for are blatently political posts (even though I do give leaway to family here), family squabbles and spam. These things do not bring honor to the dead soldier. You can help me by pressing the [Report Abuse] link when find comments like this. Note you must be logged in to use this feature.

Next I check the newest listings from the DOD and add the new deaths to the database. I then scoure the web for any good stories that give some insight into the soldier's life and post it. I copy these stories and pictures from anywhere I can find them, because unfortunately the life span of a story on a news site is short lived. I make it a policy to not post over 10 stories a day -- I feel every soldier deserves at least one day on the front page. I welcome any submissions about a soldier, especially from family and will post any pictures or memorials you send me. And above all, please send me any corrections that need to be made. I spend a lot of time trying to make sure things are accurate, but sometimes my fingers don't work and sometimes I find faulty information. I try not to post infomation until I can be sure the family has been properly notified.

On those rare days when I don't have new soldiers to add, I go back and try to fill in any information I don't have. Early on I did not post pictures, but have since decided that I should. I am actively looking for pictures I don't have. It saddens me when I find a soldier for which I cannot find any personal information -- its like they don't have anyone who cares. If you find one of these soldiers and have information about them or a link to information about them, please send it to me.

Maintaining this site has changed me. It has put a face on all those faceless soldiers and helped me realize the great sacrifice they have made on my behalf. Thank you. Hopefully reading the stories collected here will change you also.

Last Updated Saturday, October 20 2007 @ 04:00 AM EDT