Situation Normal: All Fucked Up

QUOTE But he knows the life ahead of him is unlikely to match the one he had planned, in which he was going to attend college and become a teacher, get married and have children. Now, he hopes to volunteer in a school. His girlfriend from before he went to war is now just a friend. Before he left, they had agreed they might talk about getting married when he got back.
"But I didn't come back," he said. UNQUOTE

This quote is from Jason Poole, a 23-year-old Marine corporal, featured in the New York Times article linked to above about the new faces of the "walking wounded" returning from Iraq. This is war. This is why we don't send young men to fight unnecessary, illegal, and unjustified wars. The sacrifices they make of their lives, their livelihoods and their sanity should never be made in vain. They should never be made for a lie. When we talk of George W. Bush lying to get us into this war, the cost in dollars isn't the problem. This is the problem. This is the real cost. This and the lives of 2,225 soldiers so far, so many of them so damned brave and far too young.

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" How do you ask a man to give himself and everything he associates with the word "I" for a lie?

"But I didn't come back." Corporal Jason Poole, United States Marine Corps, Age 23
Semper Fi, Jason.