WAR, day seven. My mood is dark! This WAR has darken it considerably, more specifically the death of the Army and Marine soldiers and the capture of the other American serviceman, has cast a cloud over my mood that is almost palatable. I got very little sleep last night. Visions of men in camouflage lying dead in their own blood, a bullet hole through their heads haunted my sleep, chasing my dreams, making sleep almost unbearable.

My dark mood coupled with a lack of sleep, joined with the pure sometimes insanity of work, plus an incident that happened to me and mine a week ago, and life in general made me want to scream at the top of my lungs most of the day. The weight of it all was oppressive! I could think of nothing else but the WAR all day; I have a Legal Writing assignment due, past due as a matter of fact, and I couldn’t write it. I couldn’t form the thoughts, the words, the syntax, the rhyme, the reason, the logic…

I have slid gingerly out from under it now; the late afternoon warmth and an uneventful nap helped dispersed the cloud. This is a feeling I rarely experience, and one I loath to feel again.

I hate this WAR, I want us to win and win overwhelmingly, but I hate the fact that we are there. But there we are, and seemingly for the duration. We are not conducting an all out war as we should and that is what bothers me most. Politics and WAR DO NOT MIX! Lives are lost, honor betrayed, promises and trust broken, and American fight men lied to. It happened in every WAR since Korea, and it’s wrong! I state again, Politics and WAR DO NOT MIX!

No one wants civilians to die in the course of conducting a WAR, but oftentimes to achieve the ends of the pursuit, innocent people will die; it is why the institution of WAR should be avoided at all cost. That being said, we should not allow our fears of civilian fatalities and the ignorance induced backlash from the world at large it would cause, to temper our thirst for overpowering victory, and put our men under arms in undue harm. I know I spoke to this point last night, but it bears repeating for as long as necessary for the message to reach our Accidental Presidents’ feeble mind.

And soon the battle for Baghdad will be joined; the body count will rise…

Email me: Thebard62@earthlink.net