Love Vigilantes

It used to be rare to hear this song. Back in the nineties, when people broke out the New Order, they usually played Temptation, Blue Monday, or Bizarre Love Triangle. maybe it is my imagination, but it seems like I have been hearing this song a lot over the past five years.

Buried beneath all the election coverage was the news that the death toll of U.S. service members hit 4,000. It is just a number. Our opinion on the war should not be swayed, one way or another, because this milestone has been passed. 4,000 dead in five years of war doesn't sound like a lot when you consider how many soldiers died in one day of fighting at Antietam, the Somme, or Okinawa. However, every single one of those people was a son, a daughter, a friend, a wife, a father, a husband, a mother, a sister, a brother, a mentor, an individual whose absence in the lives of those they loved will be felt for the rest of their lives. The USA Today has an interactive website which displays the names and images of those that have died. It doesn't tell us much about the lives they lived, but it reminds us all that each one of them is more than a number and that even one death is too many for those who are left behind.