The Price of Battle

First, please listen to this song...the Seekers' "I'll Never Find Another You"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ga9Bs4fzSY

Pay attention to the lyrics. Especially -

"I could search the whole world over,
until my life is through,
but I know I'll never find another you."

Do you understand?

Every death in war leaves someone, somewhere, desperately looking through their remaining days for someone who is the shadow of the person that was loved - and lost.

If you ever had a relationship end, you know a small piece of this.

But when a heart is ripped from you by bullet or blast or bayonet, there is no closure. There is nothing, but that awful, desperate longing.

We, as citizens and voters, owe it to ourselves, and to all those around us, to be sure that the people we elect are cognizant of this. That they know that beyond the posturing and the rhetoric, there are checks they can write that will be paid in a heartache more terrible than they can ever imagine.

During the Viet Nam war, American lives were spent to take hills...which were then abandoned, to be taken again.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, politicized Rules of Engagement meant that our troops could not return fire, and had to accept casualties.

'Accept casualties'. Easy for a politician to say.

Yes, sometimes war is the only answer to evil. But it should never be used to save a government's face.

Because I'll never find another you.