What should be our takeaway from this powerful and very moving article: "Fight to bring us home."

[flpoljunkie]

A war made personal
Four days earlier, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly , 29, had stepped on a land mine while leading a platoon of Marines in southern Afghanistan. He was killed instantly.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he had nominated Kelly to be his senior military assistant, a powerful position by virtue of its minute-by-minute proximity to the Pentagon chief. He would serve as a key liaison between the defense secretary and the top brass.

Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war, says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice

By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Before he addressed the crowd that had assembled in the St. Louis Hyatt Regency ballroom last November, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly had one request. "Please don't mention my son," he asked the Marine Corps officer introducing him.

Without once referring to his son's death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military's sacrifices and its troops' growing sense of isolation from society.

"We are in a life-and-death struggle, but not our whole country," he told the crowd. "One percent of Americans are touched by this war. Then there is a much smaller club of families who have given all."

He spoke of the anger that some combat veterans feel toward the war's opponents. "They hold in disdain those who claim to support them but not the cause that takes their innocence, their limbs and even their lives," he said.

Later, he clarified in an interview that he is opposed to indifference, not dissent. "I just think if you are against the war, you should somehow try to change it," he said. "Fight to bring us home."

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. K&R

[Blue_Tires]

2. some of the public comments on the site are interesting, to say the least