Nearly 40 public radio producers from around the world lend their voices to a roll call of just some of the names of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a program being made available to U.S. public radio stations for use on or around Memorial Day.

Taken Too Soon: The Cost of War is produced by Paul Ingles, who runs a non-profit media organization called Good Radio Shows, Inc. The program features some of the names and circumstances of the deaths of coalition forces, Iraqi and Afghan civilians, contractors and journalists killed since the fighting began in Afghanistan in October of 2001 and continuing up to the present day.

"I don't think there's been a program like this that has acknowledged the loss of life among civilians, contractors and journalists along side of military casualties," says Ingles. "I just felt it was important that people marking Memorial Day in the U.S. take a moment to contemplate a roll call that goes beyond just our own country's loss. All most Americans have heard is that 15, 8, 30 Iraqis died in a certain incident on a given day. These people had names and families just like the men and women of our armed forces. It seems appropriate to me to read some of their names."

The hour long program will contain about 135 names meant to represent the various casualty constituencies. A soldier from each state in the U.S. is included. Ingles used Defense Department information for the names of coalition casualties. Civilian, contractor and journalist names were drawn from press reports and websites devoted to tracking those deaths.

Ingles put an email call out to members of the Association of Independents in Radio asking for volunteers to help voice the special. Within a few days, he'd heard back from nearly 40 producers who said they'd be willing to voice a couple of minutes of names for the program.

"Since the program will consist primarily of a list of names, I thought it would sound better to have a variety of voices involved," adds Ingles. "Also I think it will create a sense of how we all are impacted by this loss of life."

Ingles estimates that the hour long program will contain about 135 names meant to represent the various casualty constituencies. "Sadly," says Ingles, "a complete reading of names at this pace, even with conservative estimates of civilian deaths, would require about 400 hours."

TO RADIO PROGRAM DIRECTORS: This program is offered in 59:00, 54:00 (newscast ready) and 29:00 lengths. 59 + 54 min shows have two one-minute breaks. Also 8 5-minute modules of the roll call are offered to stations wanting to spread them throughtout the day.

THE VOICES:

Ali Adelman
Deborah Begel
Michelle Betz
Maeve Conran
Bob Davey
Jamila Davey
Stasia DeMarco
Stephen Erickson
PW Fenton
Tim Forrest
Kate Fotopoulos
David Gans
Rachel Goodman
Roberta Griego
Ashley Gross
Paul Ingles
Rachel Kaub
Bob Leedom
Karen Lewellen
Thomas Marzahl
Amy Mayer
Don McIver
Evan Moulson
Paul Nelson
Nanci Olesen
Lu Olkowski
Claire Schoen
Kerry Seed
Sandra Sleight-Brown
Nancy Solomon
Katie Stone
Polly Stryker
Jim Terr
Rhoda Weill
Eric Whitney

The producer sincerely thanks these professionals for sharing their valuable time to voluntarily read some of the names for our program.


THE MUSIC:

David House: "Taps" from Soft Tumba One / "7c" from Soft Tumba Three (www.softtumba.com)

Barry Stramp: "Sky" from the Ansel Adams PBS Documentary Soundtrack

Steve Peters: "My Burning Skin To Sleep," "A Fine Powder," "Nothing But Love," and "Lavender" from From Shelter (www.coldbluemusic.com)

Rahim Alhaj: "Showak" and "Haneen" from Iraqi Music In A Time of War (www.rahimalhaj.com)

Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan: "The Long Road" from Dead Man Walking soundtrack

Bruce Grover: "Prairie" from Gigantic (www.brucegrover.com)

Bruce Springsteen: "Missing" from The Rising