Tears and hope

Every day our local paper publishes the names, ages, and hometowns of the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. I make myself read the list and try to imagine who these (mostly) young men were, what their lives were like, where they grew up and why they made the choice to enlist, and what their loved ones are feeling. It's a painful contemplation accompanied by tears of grief and anger. Tom Engelhardt of tomdispatch.com has posted a letter about one of these children, 19 years old, from Columbus, Texas. It's worth reading for many reasons, including the hope it engenders that people in our country are finally getting it about Iraq. And hope, as the sainted William Sloane Coffin often reminds us, is a state of mind independent of the state of the world.