I remember sitting on a dust-caked Humvee in Afghanistan in 2008 concentrating on using just the right words as I wrote my last letter home. I hadn’t even considered doing so until the company’s master sergeant asked me if I’d written one, and if I hadn’t I should do so before tomorrow’s mission. I stared at the page and contemplated every word, every thought. This was my last chance to speak to the world, to my wife and to my year-old son. It needed to be perfect.

I spent hours on this small page I had torn from a notebook. It was a dirty and sweat-stained attempt at saying everything I ever wanted to say. I tucked my last words behind the bullet-proof plate in my vest and looked up at the night. It was pitch black, and according to the most respected Marine in the unit, it might be my last.

I thought back to that night and how important each word was recently as I watched the Web explode with vitriol, using the names of my fallen brothers to excite emotions.

“Flying OUR FLAG at half staff for her when we didn’t do it for our soldiers who gave their life for us… hey Chris Christie, how many of your state’s fallen soldiers do you do this for???????” someone posted on Facebook, on Feb. 15, 2012.

As I watched people posting and reposting this comment, I was at first angry at what struck me as a hyperbolic reaction to Gov. Chris Christie. But that soon turned to sorrow. As a veteran I was saddened at what I learned was the instant acceptance and amplification of accusations that had been spun out of half-truths or blatant misinformation about service members.

Yes, the New Jersey governor had ordered the flag at half-staff in honor of Whitney Houston. New Jersey also, as policy, lowers the flag for native service members killed in action. The governor’s official site issues releases each time a flag is lowered for fallen service members. In the last year the state has honored at least 10 of our brothers and sisters killed in action. It has also honored Harry Shatel, the longtime baseball coach at Morristown High and New Jersey’s all-time leader in wins, and Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen’s saxophonist, alongside civic leaders, police officers and firefighters by flying the flag at half-staff.

It took a mouse-click and a few keystrokes to find this information and apply some context instead of succumbing to the gut feeling that honoring the life of a woman with a superhuman talent and an all-too-human problem with chemical dependence is a slight to those in uniform.

But it wasn’t the first time I had seen that kind of anger on the Internet. In January, I received this e-mail:

“We are asking everyone to say a prayer for ‘Darkhorse’ 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment and their families,” the e-mail read. “They are fighting it out in Afghanistan & they have lost 9 Marines in 4 days. IT WOULD BE NICE TO SEE the message spread if more could pass it on. Nothing in the media about these guys because no one seems to care.”

I’ve lost track of how many “please repost” updates on Facebook or Twitter mention the Darkhorse Marines. The Marines of Third Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment had one hell of a deployment in late 2010. According to National Public Radio, the battalion had 25 dead and 184 wounded, with 34 losing at least one limb during their year in Helmand Province — the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit in Afghanistan. That status keeps getting passed around.

I recently had a variation of this update e-mailed to me. “WHAT KIND OF WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN,” the author scolded me and 50 or so other unlucky Marines and veterans who wound up on the address line. It went on:

“Charlies Sheen is all over the news because he is a substance abuser…Lindsay Lohan is all over the news because she is a celebrity drug addict…Kim Kardasian’s stupid wedding…look at this list of Marines that gave their lives last month…there is no media for them?”

While I was attempting to summon the outrage demanded by a healthy peppering of exclamation points, I realized I didn’t recognize any of the names. Not one. Yet since I’ve been home, I’ve taken up the dark ritual of checking a Department of Defense press Web site for casualty information more times than I’d like to admit. It’s an odd way of keeping up on old friends and units — we all have our quirks. But as I searched the Web for one of the names in the e-mail, I discovered it belonged not to a Darkhorse Marine who died in Afghanistan but to a soldier who died in Iraq, two years ago.

Indeed, every name on that list belonged to a soldier who had died in Iraq. And every time I checked for one of the names on that list (I didn’t check every one), I found that some hometown newspaper or television station or Web site had mentioned their death. For instance, First Lt. Christopher Goeke was one of the soldiers the media “ignored,” according to that e-mail. Yet my Web search found three pieces about his life and service (WRAL-TV, Star-Tribune, KARE-11 TV). Now, shake your head at that.

Why bring this up here? Why is this a veterans’ issue? Because we allow it to happen. We buy into this idea that the world doesn’t care about us or our dead friends enough.

The world will never mourn for our own the way we veterans do, because they’re family to us, and we have a personal connection to them. But not having a personal connection does not mean civilians don’t care. How much does the average person know about the last firefighter or police officer to die in their town? Which of them received an award for valor? The inability to answer those questions doesn’t mean a lack of caring or support. Most people’s hearts ache when they hear about the death of a soldier or Marine or police officer or firefighter. Indeed, I’ve seen the streets full of people waving flags to welcome home a dead Marine they’d never met. Americans care about their fallen warriors.

I would challenge every service member, veteran or military family to consider this question: How do you really want the media to take note of service members killed in action?

If the mainstream media had the story of another dead service member on the front page for every one of the more than 6,200 Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, would people say they were showing respect for the fallen, or contempt for the wars? Would people consider them patriotic or anti-American? I’m not sure everyone would have the same answer.

In a day and age where the information is in the hands of everyone with a Facebook account and smartphone, we all are the media. We cannot be both humble men and women of service and ungrateful for the lack of attention we receive when we have the power to address it.

If you don’t think the “media” focus on the troops, then do something about it. Write an op-ed in your local paper (or with the Department of Veterans Affairs), attend a town hall meeting, run for public office or help a veterans service organization. Ignore the echo chamber screams; we’re better than that.

Randy Clinton is an active duty Marine stationed in New York. The opinions expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Marine Corps.

