Putting a human face on a technical war

One of the problems with modern warfare is that we view the death and destruction from a video game perspective. Seeing a bomb hit its target on a TV screen does not show the mangled bodies and precious lives destroyed.

I remember in the first Gulf War, when CNN and others were covering the actual events in real time, watching the videos released by the military of planes launching bombs and seeing them hit their targets on a screen. it looked just like a video game.

But the reality of war is that it is about death and destruction and tattered lives and desperation and hopelessness for the victims of the war.

This is one reason why I object to this administration's decision to block the media from showing the flag-draped coffins coming back home from war. It hides the human suffering and the true cost of this war -- our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and cousins and friends.

I can imagine both the pride and the grief that these families feel. I have seen that pride in friends and family who have service members serving in combat. One of the things I am most grateful for is that our country (and my generation) learned from Viet Nam that you don't punish the soldier for the war. We are proud of our soldiers and contractors who risk their lives to protect us.

It is both enraging and sad to see the sacrifices that our soldiers, their families and the victims of this war and all that they have suffered.

We must end this war.