CASUALTIES OF WAR

In recent days 2 tragedies have visited this area. In one a young mother and her 2 young children were killed, apparently by her husband, a PTSD victim from his Afghan war service.

And, a young wife from here and her husband were victims of the Brussels bombing.

To  me these are victims of war.

You can argue the US got into both the Iraq and Afghan wars because of misinformation...WMDs and the Taliban-AlQ link..(and should not have done so, as I believe)…or you can argue we needed to enter both wars for national security reasons.

Either way, the loss of these six young people are  casualties of the war.

Whether PTSD strikes 5 years after wartime service or 25, it is war related..and it is a cost of the war as surely as paying for veterans who lose a limb directly in the war and have to be maintained forever.

It is a cost usually not reckoned with when we count war’s cost, but it should be.

And it needs to be present in the debates we are hearing in the presidential campaign, from those who want US “boots on the ground” in Syria, and maybe Libya, and maybe back in Iraq, and…..

I'm just sayin'...