[PISANO]

I just wish PEOPLE knew we are in a WAR. A War to preserve the Western Civilisation. This constant drumbeat of scoring deaths of our troops is minimizing their sacrifice to a scorecard and reducing their deaths to a statistic that does harm to those on the front lines and to those back home praying for their loved ones return.

[pickemuphere]

COME up from the fields, father, here’s a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother—here’s a letter from thy dear son.

2

Lo, ’tis autumn;
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio’s villages, with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind;
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang, and grapes on the trellis’d vines;
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat, where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Above all, lo, the sky, so calm, so transparent after the rain, and with wondrous clouds;
Below, too, all calm, all vital and beautiful—and the farm prospers well.

3

Down in the fields all prospers well;
But now from the fields come, father—come at the daughter’s call;
And come to the entry, mother—to the front door come, right away.

Fast as she can she hurries—something ominous—her steps trembling;
She does not tarry to smoothe her hair, nor adjust her cap.

Open the envelope quickly;
O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d;
O a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother’s soul!
All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only;
Sentences broken—gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,
At present low, but will soon be better.

4

Ah, now, the single figure to me,
Amid all teeming and wealthy Ohio, with all its cities and farms,
Sickly white in the face, and dull in the head, very faint,
By the jamb of a door leans.

Grieve not so, dear mother, (the just-grown daughter speaks through her sobs;
The little sisters huddle around, speechless and dismay’d;)
See, dearest mother, the letter says Pete will soon be better.

5

Alas, poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul;)
While they stand at home at the door, he is dead already;
The only son is dead.

But the mother needs to be better;
She, with thin form, presently drest in black;
By day her meals untouch’d—then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,
In the midnight waking, weeping, longing with one deep longing,
O that she might withdraw unnoticed—silent from life, escape and withdraw,
To follow, to seek, to be with her dear dead son.

-Whitman

[Austin Willard Wright]

Minimizing their sacrifice by reporting their deaths? What a weird theory you have there, but that defenders of no-win wars usually make such arguments.

[Archangelsk]

Yes, friend, I remember that during WWII allied casualties were never reported.

[fortaydoos]

The one thing that our boys need to know is that we KNOW what they are going thru over there. They get the news, even tho it is late, and are pissed that various conservatives cannot even be bothered to mention the daily deaths and injuries.

The war was just, the war was won, but the cleanup is messy and we need another 100,000 troops over there to do it right.