by hilzoy
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.-- Walt Whitman
Andy Olmsted would have been 38 today.
I hate writing that so much.
I always knew that if we went to war in Iraq, someone's close friend would be killed. I just never thought it would be mine. I hope that made no difference to the way I thought about the war; and may I always remember, if we end up debating war again, what the costs of war are, and that whether or not they are paid by someone close to me, they will be paid by someone. Those costs might, in any given instance, be worth it, and then again, they might be not. But may I never, ever take them lightly, or talk about going to war without being fully conscious, in every cell of my body, of what war will mean for the men and women who fight it, the people caught in the crossfire, and their friends and loved ones.
Never, never, never.
Never.
***
PS: Anyone know how to set up a Paypal link?
Amen.
And also may we remember those who were not blessed with Andrew's talents or the connections he found and made, who suffer and die with perhaps nobody at all to mourn them. Each of them is just as real as all the rest, each life lost a life fully lost. Andrew sometimes touched on that in his writing about giving orders, as I recall.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | February 01, 2008 at 01:39 PM
Well said. I’m with you 100%. Well said to you as well Bruce.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 01, 2008 at 01:42 PM
Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba...
May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified...
Posted by: Barrett Wolf | February 01, 2008 at 01:46 PM
In case anyone missed it over there: from wes in the other thread:
This is just to let those interested in knowing that And's Final Post is now listed in the Congressional Record. Senator Kennedy was kind enough to do this for Nancy and I. You can find it by googling "Congressional Record" and then searching for Andrew Olmsted.
The link wes mentions is here.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 01, 2008 at 01:47 PM
"PS: Anyone know how to set up a Paypal link?"
Up to a point. It's not difficult. You need a bank account to link to the PayPal account for it to function; if you have one, go here and follow the directions.
Assuming you want to set up "donate" and/or "subscribe" options, follow the directions to do that, rather than for "sell single items" or "sell multiple items," unless of course those are your preferences.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 01:49 PM
Do be aware that PayPal will take a cut of every donation
from 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 01:52 PM
Also, many people dislike PayPal and refuse to use it. Amazon also has a donation system which could be used as an alternative.
Posted by: Chuchundra | February 01, 2008 at 02:13 PM
Hey Hilzoy,
You might want to check in to a ChipIn.com widget for getting money into your PayPal account.
Posted by: ChrisWWW | February 01, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Therefore to thee this night
I will no requiem raise
But waft thee on thy flight
With a paean of old days.
Godspeed, Andy.
Posted by: Anarch | February 01, 2008 at 02:17 PM
I will be sure to hug some laundry today in honor of Andrew. And what a kind thing for Senator Kennedy to do, too.
Posted by: Steve | February 01, 2008 at 02:39 PM
One thing about Paypal accounts: I now have the bank account info, but apparently I would need to confirm it in ways that require having access to the account itself. I do not want access to the account itself. I do not want to know what tiny amounts Paypal has deposited into it.
Argh.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 02:44 PM
I just sent you the code to add a PayPal link. Let me know if you have questions.
Posted by: paul | February 01, 2008 at 02:50 PM
Paul: thanks. I'm still hung up on how to deal with adding a bank account, though. :(
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 02:55 PM
Andy Olmsted would have been 38 today.
I can't help but think about my son's turning 5 in a couple of weeks. I hope I never have to consider how old he would have been. I can't fathom the pain of that. Just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes. My heart goes out to Andy's family.
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | February 01, 2008 at 03:05 PM
1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD? Those costs might, in any given instance, be worth it, and then again, they might be not.
I was over on a horror/sci-fi dork site this morning, and one of the commenters was totally bummed out about "Watchmen" opening in March--because, see, he'll still be in Iraq then.
Who do I have to vote for to get that guy a ticket to the premiere? 'Cause if it's Paul, so be it. Us smokers don't worry about Social Security being gutted anyway.
I realize just wars have heartbreaking costs too, but every time I cross paths with one of these kids, however fleetingly, I feel like I'm damned anew.
Posted by: borehole | February 01, 2008 at 03:28 PM
"One thing about Paypal accounts: I now have the bank account info, but apparently I would need to confirm it in ways that require having access to the account itself. I do not want access to the account itself. I do not want to know what tiny amounts Paypal has deposited into it.
Argh."
It might help to know what you're trying to do. You have to have a bank account to make a PayPal account usable.
I gather there's some specific bank account that you don't want to deposit into, that somehow relates to... whatever it is you're trying to do.
What I'm not following is what that bank account has to do with anything, if you don't want to deposit into it.
"the bank account info" isn't clear to me. You can use any bank account at all to set up your desired PayPal account.
The bank account otherwise has no affect on PayPal donations, so, again, I don't really understand what you're saying. The money donated/transacted via a PayPal account goes into the PayPal account. Period.
From there, you can move it as you wish. Whether to some other PayPal account, or to a check, or an ATM debit or credit card, and so on.
If you want to move money from the PayPal account to wherever, you are free to do so, within the limits of the various options.
If you do want to see that donations go to another specific bank account, rather than to the PayPal account, you can't really blind yourself to the doings of your own account; someone has to be responsible for it, monitor it for fraud, and so on.
I'd be happy to try to further help, if I had more of a clue of what it is you're trying to do, and what your problem is. Please feel free to take this up in e-mail.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 03:39 PM
Gary: I, personally, have a bank account, but I don't want anything put into it. I want things put into the bank account of the Casey's children's fund, whose info I now have. If I could just set it up so that when people clicked on the little button, money went into that account, I would be happy. But alas, I have to be able to verify that it's the right account.
Apparently, they do this by depositing some puny amount in the account, and then asking me to say what it was. I do not have, nor do I want, that kind of access to the Casey Children's Fund account. But unless I can do something like that, I can't set this up in such a way that money goes directly to them. And I don't want to do it any other way, since I do not want to ask people I don't know to trust me to raise money in the name of their family at a time when they are (I imagine) still all torn apart. I mean, even if they were willing, I wouldn't want to put them in the position of having to decide.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 03:48 PM
Alternatively, if you're trying to set up a PayPal account that you'll administer, which is verified by a bank account which isn't yours, that can be done, but only with the input of the person whose bank account it is.
If you do that, you'll have no access or info into the authorizing bank account; just the PayPal account. I know, because I made this arrangement with someone for some time early in my own PayPal account, when I had difficult having a bank account of my own for some time.
However, what that would have to do with transferring money to or from the bank account, I dunno; it wouldn't be necessary to set things up that way to transfer money to the bank account, and unless you have no bank account of your own, I'm not seeing any advantage to trying to do that.
Having a bank account tied to the PayPal account ("verified") is just an administrative thing; you're free to transfer money as you wish. That's the point of PayPal.
So if the idea is to get money to a third party as painlessly as possible, the options would seem to be: a) your administering a PayPal account and forwarding the money as desired; b) the third party spending the three minutes necessary to open the PayPal account as they desire, and you put donation buttons wherever you want; c) I'm not sure.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 03:52 PM
Oh my...when will the killing end? When we're all dead, and the planet can begin to heal itself?
I'd like to think not, but I'm not sure...
Posted by: serge | February 01, 2008 at 03:55 PM
"Apparently, they do this by depositing some puny amount in the account, and then asking me to say what it was."
This is true; it's a one-time verification that the account is the correct one. It'll be for under 9 cents.
"I do not have, nor do I want, that kind of access to the Casey Children's Fund account."
Might I suggest that simply explaining this to the Caseys, and apologizing for the trouble, but saying that if they can simply tell you, a couple of days from now, that single piece of info -- whether it was a three cent or seven cent or two cent deposit -- that that's all you need to know?
However, let me repeat that the money deposited to the PayPal account won't automagically be transferred to a bank account. The PayPal account is the PayPal account. Whatever bank account was used to verifiy it is... another bank account. A different thing.
Once money is in the PayPal account, the authorized owner of the PayPal account can do what they will with it.
So I'm still kinda confused. If the idea is to not allow you access to the money, you can't set up a PayPal account for someone else. They'd have to do that. It's really pretty simple, although I suppose someone with no experience at all with computers might need to be walked through it. I've done it in under two minutes, though: it's pretty much just filling out one's name, and info, and that's it.
But if you do it, it's your account, in your name, with your password access.
Let me reemphasize that once they set up the account, you can publish "donation" buttons anywhere and everywhere, if they pass along the cut-and-paste offered HTML to do so.
I'm sorry I can't offer advice to do things more simply, but while I may be misunderstanding you, I'm not sure that you're not trying to do something that may not be possible to do.
But with luck, I'm wrong.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 04:03 PM
Hilzoy, also keep in mind that if any account, be it bank or PayPal -- and I hope I've clarified that money transferred to a PayPal account doesn't go to a bank account, but to the PayPal account, from where it can be transferred to whatever -- is set up in your name, you'll be responsible for paying taxes on money that goes through that account, or for proving that you're not the responsible party.
Thus, theoretically you might start an account, and then turn over the access name and password to another party, advising them to change the password, but the remaining complications regarding taxes, social security, and so on, might be apt to not make it a simpler option than the party with the account simply opening the account, although I recognize that you want to spare the Caseys any effort at all.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 04:21 PM
Leaving aside the Paypal comments, your main point about the human costs of war is so well taken. I am one of the oldest baby-boomers, and ever since VietNam I have felt the absence of the members of my generation whose lives were wasted in that war. (I know not everyone agrees these lives were wasted, but when you see people dying while diplomats are debating the shape of the negotiating table, I think wasted is the correct term.)
I worried after the first Iraq war that people would forget this terrible cost because that war went relatively so well in terms of the loss of United States lives, and sad to say I was right. Younger people than I did not have any personal frame of reference other than the few days of that war. Now they too will know what has to be weighed before going to war, but that does not help the grieving families of the dead and wounded.
Posted by: dn1021 | February 01, 2008 at 04:51 PM
Amen.
Regardless of one's feelings on any given conflict, there is the matter of a general attitude toward war. I've never known a single vet who viewed war as anything other than, at best, a measure of last resort, an unpleasant job, or a necessary evil. Without debating any specific conflict, it truly pains me that people of power and influence don't seem to share this general view. I'm long overdue for writing more on such subjects, but it's also not as if that view, that basic wisdom, is some secret. So very many people have said the same countless times.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 01, 2008 at 01:47 PM
Thanks for passing that on.
Posted by: Batocchio | February 01, 2008 at 05:03 PM
dn1021: About "wasted lives":
I blame the passive voice, which obscures who, exactly, we think did the wasting. A lot of people read talk about soldiers' lives being wasted as though it was a comment on the life of the person who died, and/or on that person's choice (if s/he had one) to serve in the military. And while I can imagine some hypothetical soldier who "wasted" his or her life in this way -- maybe someone who joined up for some truly ridiculous reason, like maybe just liking the uniform -- I do not think that this is even remotely true of most soldiers. Most soldiers who are killed, I think, die doing their duty, and I would never want to impugn that.
What I think most people who write about soldiers' lives being wasted mean (and, best I can tell, what you mean) is that the people who needlessly sent them into war wasted (squandered, threw away) their lives. This can be true even if the individual soldier in no way wasted his or her own life.
This distinction is obvious in a lot of contexts -- if some drunk driver kills me, s/he counted my life far too cheaply when s/he got behind the wheel, but I did not "waste" my life when I decided to drive to the store; when some alleged friend of mine fabricates some emotional problem and I then spend ages dealing with it before I catch on to the fact that it's just drama, s/he wastes my goodwill, my time, and my emotional energy, even though I do no such thing when I respond to (what I take to be) her real need, etc. But it's a lot less obvious here, I think, because the issues are too politicized.
Thus, to be clear, I tend to write things like: Donald Rumsfeld did not begin to give the lives of our soldiers their true weight when he decided not to plan for the occupation, or: Jonah Goldberg wrote as if our soldiers' lives were just his playthings when he wrote that we should smash some little country against the wall every few years, just to show that we can, or something that makes it clear who I am saying did the wasting. I find this helps a lot.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 05:18 PM
Also, for the record: when you are corresponding with someone by email, and you have a really fun exchange in which the two of you barrage one another with all your favorite poems, you just never know when knowing what their favorite poems are is going to come in handy.
I never expected it to be useful in this particular way.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 05:31 PM
I was thinking just the other day how very wise of Andy to say, firmly, to all and everyone, no matter what side they were on in this argument: that we were not to use Andy's death as a political talking point.
Because I've felt the impulse, twice, in the weeks since Andy died, to do so: and each time I've refrained because Andy had asked us not to. (I would like to say because my better self realised it was a bad idea, but the truth is, no: I refrained because I remembered that this had been particularly and specifically requested.)
On one occasion, I'm quite glad I didn't: on another, I still feel a bit dammit, Andy! about not doing it.
But dammit, Andy! or not: when someone dies, their death is a peculiarly intimate pain to everyone who knew them. It's a kind of lazy pain, like we call a certain kind of wind a lazy wind: it doesn't bother going round you, it goes right through.
It's real, that pain: the knowledge that someone has gone beyond reach, that never again. It's almost too real to bear. There isn't any way to deal with it that I know of except the process of mourning: it takes time. Eventually, it turns into a bearable nugget of ordinary pain that lives on, as memory, as moments.
But one thing I think could destroy it - really terminate the process of mourning in an unnatural kind of way, make the pain unreal and unordinary - is to use the death of a friend as a political point, as anything other than that intimate personal pain that must be worked through.
You see it happen with parents who lost a child and turned that loss into a cause. However much sympathy I have for the parents, something has gone wrong when you can't mourn for someone you miss because instead there's a cause to be fought. I could see the risk of it happening with Andy - with anyone who died in Iraq whom I knew and I miss - to feel that the political cause matters too much not to feed mourning into it.
This is different from anger - I don't think Andy would mind that I'm furious about this. I've been a political activist for over half my life: I've known political activists all my life. I don't know how many Andy knew: but I'm grateful that - dammit, Andy! - I was warned from the start not to go that road with Andrew Olmsted's death.
I am not at all sure that this has made any sense to anyone but me, but, for what it's worth, there it is.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | February 01, 2008 at 05:38 PM
Jes: Brava.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 05:47 PM
hilzoy: Jonah Goldberg wrote as if our soldiers' lives were just his playthings when he wrote that we should smash some little country against the wall every few years, just to show that we can...
Wasn't that Michael Ledeen?
Also, what Jes said.
Posted by: Anarch | February 01, 2008 at 05:49 PM
And what a kind thing for Senator Kennedy to do, too.
Forgot to mention – one more little irony for you to enjoy Andrew: I now have to be grateful to Teddy freakin Kennedy for something. There was no way no how I ever thought that would happen in my lifetime. ;(
hilzoy: I never expected it to be useful in this particular way.
Ouch. Ouch. And damn. So sorry…
Jes: It makes perfect sense to me, and I thank you for expressing it just that way.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 01, 2008 at 06:10 PM
The best way to honor Andy Olmsted's memory is to state, without equivocation or pause, that the initiation of the Iraq war was a crime and that the persons responsible must be punished.
That, as a proposition, may go beyond what Andy himself would have been prepared to say, which does not detract from the honorability of his individual sacrifice; but it is necessary of our national sacrifice is to have meaning or honor.
Posted by: Frank Wilhoit | February 01, 2008 at 06:18 PM
"I am not at all sure that this has made any sense to anyone but me...."
Be sure.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 06:25 PM
OCSteve, I'm here cackling madly at your comment and thought.
Tears in my eyes, but cackling madly.
Gah, if I wasn't trying to kill myself with a MBA and a full time job, I'd think getting together for drinks and appetizers somewhere in the NoVA-DC-Baltimore area might be worth it. (Yes, that is a not so subtle hint to someone else in the area.)
Posted by: DecidedFenceSitter | February 01, 2008 at 06:37 PM
I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming. Now that it is down to just a few candidates I would think that this would be a bigger issue.
Live Earth just picked up this topic and put out an article ( http://www.liveearth.org/news.php ) asking why the presidential candidates are not being solicited for their stance on the issue of the climate change. I just saw an article describing each candidate’s stance on global warming and climate change on earthlab.com http://www.earthlab.com/articles/PresidentialCandidates.aspx . So obviously they care about it. Is it the Medias fault for not asking the right questions or is it the candidates’ fault for not highlighting the right platforms? Does anyone know of other websites or articles that touch on this subject and candidates’ views? This is the biggest problem of the century and for generations to come…you would think the next president of the United States would be more vocal about it.
Posted by: Adrian | February 01, 2008 at 06:42 PM
always knew that if we went to war in Iraq, someone's close friend would be killed. I just never thought it would be mine.
And that's a key difference. I'm at 4 friends, already, and teeth gritted that my brother-in-law doesn't get sent back. My people have always been the ones who get killed in the wars. I knew, as a supporter from the beginning and as a supporter now, that I was going to lose friends and family members; the only question was how many.
Posted by: SamChevre | February 01, 2008 at 06:46 PM
Jes,
What you write about is something that I certain think. I hope you don't mind me making it a post at TiO, but I thought it might be nice to have regulars who might want to comment in a quieter corner have the chance.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | February 01, 2008 at 07:17 PM
DFS: There seems to be enough of us in this area to warrant a get together some day. I would greatly enjoy that.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 01, 2008 at 08:06 PM
Well, we could always have a party at casa hilzoy...
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 10:58 PM
Wow. I never, ever think of it that way.
I think of myself as a less qualified to be anti-this-war because I have someone particular in mind. The wars we're in are not abstract to me and I would feel much more like a right-minded liberal if they were and I were still working to end them.
About two years ago I had my last word on this and it's really all I have to say.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/6/14932/50499/975/104811
I attended Capt. Casey's funeral mass, because although I rarely comment, it seemed fated that someone from this community should witness it.
Posted by: PhoenixRising | February 01, 2008 at 11:01 PM
PhoenixRising: thanks for being there. It means a lot to know that someone was there.
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 11:13 PM
"Well, we could always have a party at casa hilzoy..."
Boulder is a much more central location for people from around the U.S, I have to point out.
And it's far far more likely that John Thullen would attend.
You wouldn't want an ObWi get-together without John Thullen, would you?
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 01, 2008 at 11:13 PM
San Diego is further but has better weather. ;)
Posted by: Sebastian | February 01, 2008 at 11:18 PM
PhoenixRising: I just read the diary. I hope he's OK.
I think that in general, everyone who doesn't know anyone at war, as I didn't when it started, always has to try to imagine that it is their child, or their friend, or their brother or sister, whose life is on the line, knowing that they can never really understand what it's like, but doing their best anyways. I thought that back in 2003 -- actually, way before then -- and I still think so.
I also think -- and wanted to write this in the main post, but it got too cluttered, and Andy's birthday didn't feel like a good occasion for clutter -- that I think it cuts the other way as well. Most of the time, when there's any ghost of a case for going to war, people's lives are already on the line, and being lost. And just as there are airy dismissals of the costs of war, there are also airy dismissals of the cost of not going to war.
I imagine that if we had contemplated going into Rwanda during the genocide, there would have been some people who were reflexively opposed to it, and for whom the people who were being hacked to death with machetes would have been as unreal as the Iraqis and our soldiers were for Jonah Goldberg. I think it's wrong either way.
-- Oh, and I forgot to say this before: it was Jonah Goldberg who wrote
I don't know of Ledeen himself actually endorsing this, though for all I know he could have,
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 11:25 PM
if we had contemplated going into Rwanda during the genocide, there would have been some people who were reflexively opposed to it, and for whom the people who were being hacked to death with machetes would have been as unreal as the Iraqis and our soldiers were for Jonah Goldberg
Exactly. The only reason that Wes Clark and his Army were sent to pacify Bosnia that I can grasp? Racism makes it easier to see that the dying families in Bosnia are also people, and thereby makes the risked lives of soldiers a worthy (potential) sacrifice.
This despite the fact that four companies of USMC could have (temporarily) stopped the slaughter in Rwanda by shutting down the radio stations. With no bloodshed. In about an hour.
Posted by: PhoenixRising | February 02, 2008 at 12:52 AM
Hilzoy, it was the least I could do. I enjoyed Andy's reporting so much.
My cousin is as okay as he's ever going to be. He and his men killed kids, civilians, old guys; they bullied families and made a new generation of America-haters by busting down doors and yelling. He told me at the holidays that his nightmare is one of his sons having to go back to the Mideast because it will never be over.
I responded, As long as our oil is under their sand, it ain't over, and that's why I'm installing solar on my new roof.
Not my child. Not for those stakes.
Posted by: PhoenixRising | February 02, 2008 at 12:59 AM
"We've lost 126 soldiers since we've been here. One hundred twenty-six of my soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of Multinational Division Central, in a Jan. 23 briefing with military analysts. "And I'll be [darned] if I'm going to advocate giving up ground that they died for. We are just not going to do that. The place will go back in a heartbeat."
"If you've got an area that you've taken away and you walk away from it, 96 hours later the enemy is back--and he's intimidating the population (and) he's killing innocent people," said Lynch. "So we just have to manage this transition very diligently."
I wish that General Lynch would have honored Andy Olmsted’s final wishes.
Our military leadership has a fiduciary duty to the Country to give their elected leadership honest and forceful feedback. They are not doing their jobs.
Thoughts and prayers with those walking the line tonight, and their families.
Posted by: Bill | February 02, 2008 at 01:28 AM
Andy Olmsted would have been 38 today.
I, too, was born in '70 and thus will turn 38 this year.
Somehow, this makes it much more real to me.
Posted by: otmar | February 02, 2008 at 01:41 AM
I was thinking just the other day how very wise of Andy to say, firmly, to all and everyone, no matter what side they were on in this argument: that we were not to use Andy's death as a political talking point.
Is it a political point to make the basic point that in opting for war, you have to be aware of its real cost and be able to say that it was worth it -- that Andy's death in Iraq was worth it because that war was worth it?
I have shied away from making this basic point because of this "political point" question. My own feeling is that there is absolutely nothing political about this larger point -- that advocacy for war means having to say that the lives that will be lost will be justifiable and meaningfully spent, and every death measured by that equation.
My own feeling since 2002 when I first heard about the Iraq war advocacy starting to unfold was that this question could not be answered "yes" for this war. And that too few measured advocacy for war by this standard.
I remember reading how vets of prior wars were, as a group, not for this war. I think they more than anybody know this formulation for making the decision for war.
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 04, 2008 at 01:32 PM
Posted by: hilzoy | February 01, 2008 at 05:18 PM
You make a crucial distinction I've tried to make many times over the years. Whether a cause is just or unjust, or a mission is successful or not, or however you want to put it, doesn't change the individual honor or heroism of a given soldier, marine or anyone else. Two people can be split, one for a given conflict and another against, but in both cases want to avoid unnecessary death. I think of it as being "pro-soldier but anti-war," but there are other attitudes or ways to put it. The exact position on a given conflict can be less important to me in a way that treating it with appropriate weight.
And Jes, yes, as others have said, well put. I think of it of being honest with my grief and respecting it.
Posted by: Batocchio | February 04, 2008 at 03:34 PM
I salute you, Major, wherever you are.
Posted by: Sean | February 05, 2008 at 10:30 AM