>>>At lunch time I just read Maureen Dowd's column in today's paper. (Here is a link -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/opinion/22dowd.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=maureen%20dowd&st=cse&oref=slogin). She writes about Colin Powell saying one of the reasons he decided to speak out the other day was a photo in The New Yorker of a mother grieving over the grave of her son, who was killed in Iraq. Powell said he stared at the picture for an hour, thinking about how the politics of polarization have been used to divide us.
>>>
>>>As it happens the same photo arrested my attention, although not for an hour, when I read that issue a week or so ago. It was the picture of a mother's grief, along with her son's name, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, that grabbed me. It was a reminder that all kinds of dash-Americans have died in Iraq. Here is the photo (#16):
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>>>http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/29/slideshow_080929_platon?viewall=true#showHeader
>>>
>>>#18 also grabbed me.
>>>
>>>The New Yorker doesn't do a lot of photo galleries but they all seem to be memorable.
>>
>>I know I'm probably going to get blasted for writing this, but here it goes.
>>We all know that war is horrible and many people suffer in worst ways. But why is it that when the media writes an article about a soldier, it always seems to portray them as victims? It's just a rhetorical question... besides, I can already guess some of the answers I'm likely to read.
>
>Do you mean by victims the soldiers who get killed?

No. soldiers die during combat, that is a given.

My brother was in the military. He faught in the first Gulf war and retired 2 years ago as Lt. Colonel. He told me that 99.9% of the soldiers, who volunteer and enlist, know that at any time they can be call to combat for any reason by their government and it isn't up to the individual soldier to decide whether he should agree or disagree. They just go because it's their job.

I don't know Mike. There's a point in there somewhere. We've beat'n the subject of war to death already.