Let’s take a look at some important numbers, five days after many Americans solemnly honored those who made the ultimate sacrifice while defending our country.

At Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, President Bush paid tribute to the war dead, and said America has always been a "reluctant warrior."

Yes, that has mostly been the case. But we can’t really say that about Bush’s Iraq war. It is, after all, the president’s war, not America’s war.

A reluctant commander would not have invaded Iraq because the justification was invalid, immoral and based on lies and incorrect information.

A reluctant commander does not invade and cause death and suffering unless he has truth and righteousness on his side. Isn’t that the American way?

Five days ago he said " the military is standing directly between our people and the worst dangers in the world." We now know that was not the case in Iraq. The dangers are much worse because of the invasion. The president now insists that the Iraq war is part of a wider war on terror.

We weren’t told that before the invasion, when people were duped with lies about weapons of mass destruction and America being in imminent danger.

25.

Six weeks after we attacked Iraq, the president boarded an aircraft carrier, put on a bomber’s jacket and declared major combat was over. But the president was wrong again, lacking the understanding a commander should possess of what would happen in Iraq after our swift toppling of its government.

Can you believe it? Our commander-in-chief celebrated a victory that has yet, 25 months later, to become reality. And the world is not a safer place. And too many soldiers and civilians have died since this war was supposed to be over.

"In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," the president said May 1, 2003. Since then more than 1,100 U.S. troops have perished.

1,660.

On Monday, the president said the "war on terror brought great causes," he said, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan. "Because of the brave sacrifice," Bush added, "two terrorist regimes are gone forever. Freedom is on the march and America is more secure."

And 1,660 American troops have been killed in the process.

Iraq was not a terrorist regime. That’s just what our leaders call it now to justify a war that has proved only how false our reasons were for fighting it.

With all the car-bombings and ambushes, Iraq is more of a terrorist state today than it was three years ago, before it was annexed by the U.S.-led coalition.

Also on Monday, the anti-war group Veterans for Peace created an "Arlington West" of more than 1,600 white crosses on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., in memory of American soldiers killed in Iraq. Some crosses were decorated with flowers along with pictures and names of the dead, according to wire service reports.

12,630.

But not every casualty results in death. Many more survive, often with catastrophic injuries. They are sneaked into Walter Reed military hospital under cover of night.

So far, about 12,630 soldiers have been wounded, about half of them so seriously that they did not return to duty. Many have lost limbs or received wounds to organs that will make it impossible to ever to return to life as they knew it.

And that’s not mentioning those with psychological scars so deep that it will takes months or years for them to return to "real life."

On Monday, the president read portions of letters from some service members who later died in action in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He didn’t read any letters from the maimed.

25,000.

Victims of the war not often mentioned (because they’ve been silenced) are the civilians who have been killed by American action or indirectly as a result of the civil war being waged since we declared victory.

Some have put the number of such innocent, civilian victims at 25,000. They were not forgotten Monday, at least in Boston where about 70 musicians gathered at City Hall Plaza for a Memorial Day tribute.

Performers with wind, percussion or string instruments made a circle and formed notes for the war’s civilian casualties. A high note was sounded for a child, a medium note for a woman and a low note for a man.

139,000.

There are about 139,000 American troops in Iraq. Some are dying every day, fighting for our hand-picked side in a civil war that likely will go on for years.

Some insurgents are foreigners, but so are we. The country is a nightmare. People can’t walk or drive to the store without fear of being blown up.

So what has happened to the anti-war movement? Where is the outrage with what continues to occur every day in Iraq and Washington?

The movement seems to have contracted since the days and weeks leading up to the March 2003 invasion. We need to be awakened from a slumber built of feelings of helplessness. Demonstrations are being planned for Sept. 24 to help us do that.

Look at the numbers, and support the troops by demanding that they are brought home.

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Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at (607) 432-1000, ext. 217, or cary@thedailystar.com.