When Lisa Pagan was honorably discharged from the military in 2005, she was told there was little chance she would be recalled to active duty.Unfortunately, after settling down and having two children, the military ordered she report for duty.To avoid charges and the foster care system, Pagan brought her 3- and 4-year-old children with her when she reported earlier this month.The media grabbed this sticky situation, and a sympathetic nation reviled at the thought of Pagan being returned to active duty.Much sympathy should be given. It is unfortunate whenever mothers are ripped away from their children. It is even more unfortunate whenever there is a chance those mothers will never return.Our military personnel are truly asked to sacrifice.But it says a lot about the conscience of the American population this story caught on as it did.Of all the tragedies of the Iraq War, the Pagan family drama is hardly a footnote.No one will ever know how many lives were swallowed into the hellish maw of the conflict.More than 90,000 civilians have died since the conflict began, according to the Iraq Body Count project. This conservative estimate only counts deaths reported in at least two media outlets.Other estimates base their numbers on surveys of Iraqi households. These numbers include 151,000 violent deaths, according to the Iraq Family Health Survey, and more than 601,000 violent deaths, according to the Lancet survey.But a life need not be ended to be shattered. More than 4.7 million Iraqis fled their homes as a result of the war, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.Because Iraq’s population is roughly a tenth of America’s, multiply all of these numbers by 10 to understand the magnitude.If similar destruction occurred in America, far more than 900,000 would have died, and 47 million Americans would have put their lives on hold while the desolation ran its course.For sake of comparison, 2,974 lost their lives on 9/11, and 32 died in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.But these numbers fail to illustrate the condition victims are forced to live in.In desperation, many Iraqi mothers have resorted to selling their daughters into sex slavery. While 11- and 12-year-olds are sold for as much as $30,000, older children sell for as little as $2,000, according to the March 7 edition of Time Magazine.Activists report tens of thousands of girls are forced into this way of life, but no official estimates are available.The Iraqi government has not taken any action against the traffickers.When Lara Logan — CBS’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent — was asked if an anti-war bias existed in the media, she responded by saying “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier. What does that look like? Who in America knows what that looks like?”In response to the media firestorm, the military allowed Pagan to return to her family.”I’m a human being. I need to take care of my children. They don’t have anybody else,” Pagan said in an interview with a North Carolina TV station.Fortunately for her children, Pagan received the respect she deserved as a human being.But one must ask why the sympathy for Pagan is not extended to Iraqi families.Perhaps if we appreciated the humanity suffering on all sides of the conflict, we never would have embarked upon this foolish crusade in the first place.Daniel is a 21-year-old economics junior from Baton Rouge.—-Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]