By Staff
Our real war in Iraq started sometime after President George W. Bush famously proclaimed, "Major combat operations are over." Relatively few of us have been at war, however.
Most external indicators indicate it's peacetime in America.
Approaching the fourth anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, tattering American flags flapping from car antennas have been replaced by more durable magnetic yellow ribbons slapped on fenders to support our troops and a burgeoning number of other causes.
We do love our troops - we learned that much from Vietnam - but average Americans are frustrated at what else they can do besides wear patriotism on their sleeves.
It must be frustrating to the military to be saddled with a muddled mission they are courageously fighting despite the sense that the war hasn't preoccupied the rest of their country.
How ironic that they embrace service and physical and intellectual discipline to represent us, since such virtues are the antithesis of our celebrity bling culture.
Military communities deal with these terrible losses in their own way, but for the rest of us, the failure to acknowledge this grief in any meaningful way or shed any tears leaves an aching void in the name of shielding us from suffering.
That's why Cindy Sheehan struck such a chord.
Her awkward anguish put a public face on the agony of a war that is not Vietnam.
It cannot be abandoned without dire consequences.
Conversation about the 500-pound elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about is long overdue.
Sheehan's vigil along the road to Bush's Crawford ranch began Saturday, Aug. 6, to demand why Casey, 24, one of eight Marines killed in a Sadr City ambush in April 2004, gave his life.
However tawdry the ensuing media circus plays out - like sunbathing activists trying out cheers, "C!I!N!D!Y! She deserves a reason why" - it began as a powerful political statement by a mother who lost her son and a genuine protest of one grieving individual.
And it reverberated with ordinary Americans before the right turned her into a Michael Moore stooge, a fame-seeking narcissist and an anti-American traitor, with Bill O'Reilly not only questioning her motives, but also suggesting people might find her actions treasonous.
What she did accomplish was to return the Iraq war to its rightful place in the forefront of the national consciousness.