866 American Lives Lost

It is said that in peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children.

American deaths and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on my mind these past few days. Claims of the "deadliest month" has become a repetitive headline; each month. There have been 866 American lives lost since the 2001 invasion; 53 deaths in October; and, President Obama met 18 fallen American personnel in a midnight visit to Dover Air Force Base last evening.

In a cold and misty night, the President and his entourage, quietly saluted the return of the flag-draped coffins in what the military calls "a dignified transfer." A Chaplin raises his hands in prayer as the "cases" exit the "precious" cargo plane. It is only recently, that the American public is once again allowed to see the return of these fallen victims of war. The Bush Administration had restricted the media coverage of these "transfers" since the onset of the Iraqi and Afghan invasions. Some say to give privacy to the soldiers' families; others say it was to mask the casualty count that these wars have produced.

I came of age during the war in Viet Nam; or the conflict as it was called. I remember the news coverage each evening of the bloody battles and knew young men that lost their lives in the "conflict." I knew and know many men that live "lost lives" because of that "conflict."

While President Obama has inherited these wars, the pundits proclaim that it will "define his presidency." As he, and his military advisers, ponder the deployment of yet more Americans into Afghanistan, he is being called "overly cautious and indecisive." I am having memories of Lyndon B. Johnson and his decisions to escalate American presence in Southeast Asia; in these lands where a civil war threatened the freedom of many. Viet Nam, sadly, defined the Johnson Administration too.

If we learned nothing else from the Viet Nam tragedy, we should have learned that you can not fight for someone else's freedom. It is not our fight. Freedom is something for which each individual must make a sacrifice. Do we, or can we, really "give" freedom? Do we all share the same definition of "freedom"? We went to the Middle East to search and destroy the Taliban and Bin Laden. We went there for selfish purposes and now claim we are there to protect the freedom of the people.

Whatever happened to good, old fashioned covert operations? If Bin Laden, one man, was our mission, why have we sent so many? Saddam is gone, why are we still there? Are we really there to "root out evil" and "crush injustice" or are we on a proselytizing mission to assimilate western culture into an ancient civilization? Did we not learn from the Crusades?

H.G. Wells said, "If we do not end war, war will end us." It is not my wish for our children.