I looked long and hard at the faces of those who died in Iraq. It was a good thing to publish them so that we may grieve for their lost lives and pray for their heartbroken loved ones.
Thank you, too, for publishing “Succeed or fail, war is hell and everyone loses” (Commentary, Nov. 21), by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president and professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary. I can relate to her story of her grandfather who came back from World War I, unscathed physically but yet he was a ruined human being for 50 years. I had two uncles who came back from the Battle of the Bulge.
One uncle struggled with alcoholism and died young.
The other uncle lived to be 80 but still could not forget the horror of losing so many young comrades.
(For him they were still young.)
Just my association many years ago with these two beloved uncles, my only personal contact with those who have served in battle, has been enough to make a peacenik out of me.
I agree wholeheartedly with Thistlethwaite that when as a nation we decide to go to war, we create the kind of hell on Earth that makes it hard to single out a single Marine, the one who is accused of shooting a wounded man, and distance ourselves from him.
How many Americans crying out against this war would be enough to cause those in power to end it?
Part of the hell is that it seems never-ending.
All these beautiful young soldiers gone and others coming home to face disordered lives, and there is no end in sight.
