Veterans Day Isn't The Fourth of July

It might be too painful to watch, but HBO's "Last Letters Home" tonight at 9, sounds like something you should watch anyway.

A collection of parents reading their sons' and daughters' words before dying in Iraq, the film should be mandatory viewing for any American. Whether you believe in this war or not, whether you voted for Bush or not, whether you feel safer or not, I think we can all stand to see the human face on the true cost of our actions.

And yes, they are our actions even if you don't personally support them. The families and friends of the thousands of Iraqis who have died for every single US soldier and the fundamentalists who will exploit them aren't going to necessarily distinguish pro-war Americans from anti-war Americans or red states from blue states when they are plotting ways to kill Americans in retaliation. If you think this war hasn't raised the level of desperation, anti-American hatred, and excuses for violence against us, then you might as well think that the Jets and Giants are better off without Chad Pennington and Michael Strahan.

And yeah, war is hell. It's messy. American soldiers aren't to blame for anything that goes on over there as far as I'm concerned. And I believe that our so-called leaders, while completely deluded and dangerously incompetent, have noble (or at least not patently evil) intentions. But we owe it to ourselves, these soldiers, and their families to bear witness to the consequences.