Iraq war, 5 years on, tests the loyalty of Loyal, Wis.

Loyal, Wis., "is a city of four bars, three churches, three gas stations, two feed mills, two banks, a bowling alley, grocery store, modest homes and 1,290 people," and two casualties in Iraq, where a war enters its sixth year this week, writes Bill Glauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Like many rural places, Clark County has lost more than its share of soldiers in Iraq, probably because the military is a greater source of employment for rural youth than for their counterparts in suburbs and cities. (Journal Sentinel map)

The word of the county's two casualties arrived in Loyal exactly two years apart, on the days after Christmas in 2004 and 2006. The first was a father of four, a youth football coach and a bank vice president. The second was a Loyal High School graduate who had gone straight into the Marines. The two men "are honored as heroes. Esteem is less secure for the war in which they fell," the Journal Sentinel says under its headline, "Loyal weighs the cost."

The newspaper distributed a voluntary-reply survey about the war, drawing 224 respondents who said they lived in Loyal. Two-thirds said they opposed the war. Just over half "said the U.S. should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within a year, and one-fifth favored an immediate withdrawal," Glauber reports, noting that the poll was unscientific and "There is not one anti-war sign in the city." Coni Meyer, who works in the high-school office, told him, "It isn't going to help a grieving family if you're angry."

Loyal was named for Civil War veterans who "proclaimed they were loyal to the Union. That loyalty is tacked to a large plaque at American Legion Post 175, more than 700 tiny pieces of wood emblazoned with the names of those from the area who served in America's armed forces," Glauber reports. (Photo by Kristyna Wentz-Graff) "It is difficult to bridge the space between Loyal and Iraq. ... Loyal is tethered to another 3,000 people who live in surrounding townships and communities that dot the rolling farmland. Some of the old farms are now owned by Old Order Amish families who ride the back roads in horse-drawn buggies painted black. Over there, in Iraq, is an expanse of desert, cluttered, broken cities, a society that continues a fitful and violent emergence from dictatorship, all while under the occupation and protection of U.S. forces. It is so peaceful in one place, often so bloody in another." (Read more)