I watched the HBO film tonight.
There isn't much to say about the story, or the people involved, that you haven't seen in interviews and trailers.
I wanted to talk more about service. Reading Jeanmarie Simpson's diary last night, and hearing the flak she's taken from anti-war groups for even doing a piece about people who serve, got me thinking about service.
Specifically armed service.
I am anti-war. Not universally, but in 99+% of cases. There are so few good reasons to unleash the horrors that nations ration for war. There are some, but they come very seldom.
We tend to our gardens and our children, hoping that these tools and their masters will never be taken from their grease paper.
But any nation that wants to call itself sovereign must have such nightmares at the ready, and people trained to wield them. And, when the life of a nation is balanced on the skill of those masters and the tools they carry, we hope we have the best.
Whatever we have felt about the wars our country is now fighting, however hard we might have striven to prevent them, we do have the finest, most dedicated warriors any nation could ask for.
Offering them all honor and respect is our duty as garden-tenders and child-rearers. It has nothing to do with the cynical suits who sent them to their ends.
I'm very grateful for HBO and Lt. Col. Michael Strobl for telling this small story that must stand for 4,247 others. I only wish we could be told all of them.