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"On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, an armistice was signed that ended World War I, the first great bloodletting of the twentieth century, "the war to end all wars" that proved but the prelude to World War II. Now, here we are at the 11th day of the 11th month of the sixth year of the twenty-first century and another great bloodletting is underway that, despite the recent electoral thumpin' of the Bush administration and the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has no end in sight. In Iraq, 2,839 American troops have already died, tens of thousands have been wounded, and unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- military, insurgent, and civilian -- have been killed in every grim and bloody way possible."

You can read the entire essay, as well as a very eloquent piece written by Doug Troutman, a Vietnam war vet, who's son is now an Iraqi war vet.

Doug's essay begins:

I've never dealt well with Veterans Day. Perhaps it's because I knew too many men whose names appear on a black wall in Washington D.C.

In Vietnam, letters often took weeks to arrive from home, but technology has changed much about war. My son could telephone or email me instantaneously from Baghdad.

When he came home on leave, we compared experiences, sometimes laughing about things that caused his mother to leave the room. When he came home, we sometimes spoke softly under a night sky, the Milky Way above, about how small and ignorant we humans really are.

I do not believe people should "play" war. I am upset by children with toy guns or sticks -- or adults with real guns and mock uniforms who "pretend."

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