The buzz of business on the floor of the Colorado Senate obliterated the first few names.
For the record, they were Pfc. Elden D. Arcand, Sgt. Timothy R. Boyce, Spec. Hoby F. Bradfield Jr. and Spec. Joshua T. Brazee.
All died in Iraq in the past year. They were among 63 Iraq war fatalities who served in units at Fort Carson or who were Coloradans assigned to military units elsewhere.
Slowly, the clerk read each of their names into the record Tuesday morning.
As she did, strange things happened.
A pair of legislative staffers sitting next to me had been talking so loudly that I could barely hear. They dropped their discussion to a whisper, then a mumble, then complete silence.
Senators milling in the aisles, strategizing and chatting as they usually do, gradually paused.
One by one, they seemed to grasp that something else demanded their attention.
The white noise of partisan wheeling and dealing that so often provides the background to the political process ground slowly to a halt. With it went cynicism, glibness and boredom.
Newspapers rustled shut. E-mail checks ended. Distractions evaporated.
Three seats down from me, a woman quietly began to cry.
Six soldiers, five in camouflage uniforms and combat boots and one in dress greens, sat along a wall of the Senate chamber. They tapped their feet. They fidgeted nervously. They were woefully out of their element.
Several of these soldiers had fought in Iraq. One, a lieutenant colonel, was about to return for a second year-long tour.
These soldiers had just been recognized by name from the podium. Now, they listened to the names of others, soldiers whose fate they risked, but men whose motivations they understood better than the policy wonks and political wizards who surrounded them.
As the clerk read on, Republican Sen. Ron May of Colorado Springs handed each soldier a copy of the resolution honoring “military personnel from Colorado” fighting in Iraq. Stonefaced, the soldiers studied the pages. It was as if they were following the program at a funeral service, looking for people they recognized.
The chamber grew quiet, as quiet as Sen. Dave Owen, R-Greeley, could remember in nearly two decades in the legislature. Hearing the names of the dead out loud made a powerful difference to Owen, who spent 28 years in the Army, including a year in Vietnam.
“I was only over there (in Southeast Asia) once,” he said. “These guys get rotated in and out (of Iraq).”
Rep. Mark Cloer, R-Colorado Springs, had accompanied the six soldiers to the Senate. He sat with them. Cloer sponsored a similar military recognition resolution in the House. It did not steel him to the occasion. He wept openly.
Suddenly, dozens of elementary school students on a field trip poured into the upper gallery. Incredibly, they barely made a sound. I chalked it up to the karma of an amazing moment – a moment that transcended everything but a sense of shared humanity.
It didn’t matter what anyone thought about the reasons for, or the conduct of, the war in Iraq. As the clerk continued to read the names of the dead, everyone grasped the stakes.
When they did, no one struggled to hear the clerk. Instead, they hung on her every word. She spoke for nearly a half-hour.
“I know that took a great deal of time,” Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald of Jefferson County said when the clerk stopped. “But that’s the point. We still have time.”
Fitz-Gerald, who sponsored the military recognition resolution in the Senate, is outspoken and tough. She comes as close as anyone to Colorado’s version of Britain’s Iron Lady – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – but even Fitz-Gerald choked on her words.
“As we read of the fatalities daily in the paper, we don’t feel the pain,” she said. “We don’t personally feel the emptiness.”
When a lone bugler in the Senate balcony blew taps, they came close.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
