To have been only twenty, and watch everything that was stripped away for no reason, and now to be forty, having watched what the jingoism and fear-mongering has twisted into down the years -- it does get grim trying to count the cost. I talked to a Marine in Kabul who hadn't been born yet when all this started. A Marine who could be our kid. She seemed not to have any illusions about patriotism, not that I heard in her voice. "So you work for, like, a church? ...Do you pray?"

*hugs* The loss is never, not to quote CCR at a time like this, the senator's son. It's the kid down the block. It sucks, it fucking sucks and I am sorry.