Word

At the end of almost every broadcast of PBS’ “News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” there is a silent honor roll of photos with names, ages, hometowns, and ranks of the US servicemen and women who were killed in the line of duty and whose loss has been officially announced by the Pentagon. As I watch the seemingly-endless parade of faces, I always notice how young all of them were and I always wonder what they might have been doing had they not given their lives for their country in the Armed Forces. The loss of these brave men and women to society is immeasurable, I think, since we can never know what contributions they would have made to better our society, our country, and ourselves. I know only that our society is substantially poorer for their loss.
Ultimately, though, I must agree with Senator McCain’s “slip of the tongue” that the lives of these brave men and women have been “wasted,” not in the sense that these people who have laid down their lives for their nation did so in futility or uselessness, but in the sense that their lives have been cut short far too soon to realize all they could have been and all they could have done. It is an ignominious waste indeed of such energy, such character, such hope, such potential, such possibilities for our country’s future that I must seriously question if we will ever learn the true lessons of war.