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>>>but I love the place and find the French charming. I certainly don't fault them for not getting behind the Iraq war - one must act in what one perceives to be one's own national interest. I do notice there have been some changes in France since, so I don't think we are too far apart on the big things and I think it would be a very bad mistake for our mutual enemies to doubt that. I am told by people I think know that in the war against the Gottbedrunken crazies they are completely on board and often play rougher than we do.
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>>I've visited a few military cemeteries in France. Its a sobering experience looking at the ages of a lot of the dead. They where just children.
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>Yes, visiting a national cemetery is a sobering experience. I pass one on the way to San Francisco. The tombstones follow the rolling hills east of the freeway as far as you can see.
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>I was 17 when I enlisted in the military. Who thinks about getting killed at that age? When I was 45, I was at a coffee break with a group of fellow employees. We were all Vietnam veterans. The conversation got around to age in the military and ones attitude about invulnerability.
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>I gave a scenario as a 45 year old: We are surrounded by the enemy. The sergeant says, “Take that hill boy”! I replied, “FUC* you!” We all agreed that was reality. Amazing what a few years can do to ones attitude! :)

My fathers started talking about the war a little more now. He's in his 80's and I believe thats common. He told my son about watching a mule train coming down a hillside in Italy. On the back of each mule was a dead American GI. He was seeing these things when he wasn't much older than my son.