Memorial Day 2007

This morning while I was busy working on tiling the dining room floor, I heard the roar of jets. I scrambled out on the back porch in time to see the two fighters streaking south to fly over some community's ceremony honoring our dead. I thought about the only people I have contact with in the military: my nephew who's training in medical services in the Air Force and my daughter's partner who just came home from her three years in the Marines. She spent several months at Al Asad in the western Iraqi desert. I opposed going into Iraq. I am cautious about how we wield our military might. I don't have a family member in harms way right now. And so I'm like most Americans today. The 'war', the 'surge', the 'insurgency' and so many other terms are theoretical to me. I don't have a person who's close facing off in the Afghan/Iraq theater. And I find myself struggling with that reality. Because this is a shooting war- more so in the last couple of months as we put forces in place to take on the insurgents in Iraq. I don't have to give up anything, ration anything, or keep a light in my window. This war doesn't even demand that I pay attention to the daily bulletins, the skirmishes, the bombs, or the names of the dead. This war has not been--from day one--America's war. It's been a cheap war bought without demanding that we all be part of it. And I am sad and shamed by that. The young men and women, like those few I know, who are the pointed end of the spear we have thrust into the maelstrom of Iraq, deserve all of our attention, every day. Deserve all of our support when they return. Deserve our thanks. Whether or not this is the wrong war, they go out to fight it on our behalf with the best of purpose into places that are unimaginably horrific. I pledge to do more to support their sacrifice in this coming year.