Today marks the end of the Dutch presence in Afghanistan and here’s a small data oriented tribute to those that have fallen in service. Inspired by the Home and Away visualization by Stamen, I decided to see if something similar for our Task Force Uruzgan would provide any insight.
There are massive differences fortunately between the American and the Dutch situation in count and dispersion of casualties. We have 24 fallen during the four years the mission was there and I think all of them are in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province. I say ‘think’ because our department of defense is much more conservative in releasing exact data.
I was still curious if there was a pattern to the origins of the soldiers that have fallen in Afghanistan on a democratic mandate on behalf of us all, so I googled their names and tried as best I could to deduce their home towns. The result is the following list and map:
The only trend that is noticeable is that these soldiers are overwhelmingly not from the Randstad area. The other takeaway is doing the research for the map which was a pretty intense experience. Reading the stories behind what has happened and people’s reactions. So if anything, I think any representation that breaks up the total count of 24 into separate individuals is a good thing and I hope you take this map as that.
Nice mapping! I already thought that this project was inspired by Home and Away by Stamen. Good job!