One Impressive Digital Memorial: Sean Askay's Map the Fallen
ByFor the technically-minded, we wanted to point out Sean Askay’s efforts to honor every single one of the soldiers who have given their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For the past four years, Askay has paintaskingly been creating an interactive Google Earth data layer “that allows you to see photos, learn about how each service member died, visit memorial Web sites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.” He released his work yesterday for Memorial Day.
Askay’s creation is called the Map the Fallen Layer. Technical writer Dong Ngo of CNET News, explains:
“…the Map the Fallen layer contains information collected from a number of sources, including the Department of Defense’s Statistical Information Analysis Division, icasualties.org, MilitaryTimes.com’s Honor the Fallen, The Washington Post’s Faces of the Fallen, the Iraq and Afghanistan Pages, and Legacy.com.
The layer requires Google Earth 5.0 or later. Once the software is installed, you just need to download the Map the Fallen layer layer and choose to open it. After a few seconds, the layer will be loaded and you can learn so much more about those honorable men and women that you might otherwise don’t know about at all.”
We’re afraid that some people might see Askay’s efforts as tinged with political sentiment or anti-war ideology because of the maps focus on soldiers who have died in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We read Askay’s blog on Map the Fallen closely and see no anti-war bent or political inclination behind his efforts. He exudes respect for fallen soldiers. A better explanation for the focus on recent conflicts is that more data is available than for early conflicts. To use Askay’s layer, you can click on the thumbnail for his blog, below, and download Google Earth 5.0 and his map from the upper right-hand column of the page. Both are free. Great job, Sean!
