You Had to Know it Was Coming...

Everyone knows the news, some of the details. Everyone's seen the pictures; too blurry and pixilated to have been from very close - but the jumble of metal, the smoke - they were unmistakable. Thirty-six (final count?) soldiers on their way out of Iraq for their 2 weeks R&R had their trip cut short by a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. 16 are dead, 20 wounded.

I was out of the country this weekend so I'm not sure how this was covered by the media. The stories this morning are all about details and the "back story." All I know is how it affected me.

I've been out of the Army too long for anyone I really knew to have been on the Chinook. But I knew them anyway. Every couple of years, as young soldiers and the older, more experienced ones cycle through the units, the faces are new, but they are the same, too. Their stories, although the details are different, are the same. It's that shared experience that helps bond soldiers together even though they move in and out of units every 18 - 36 months.

As a commander and as an operations officer, I've had to make the decisions that send these young men and women into harm's way. Each time, regardless of how many times you do it, it is a difficult decision to make. That knowledge that you could end up writing that letter to someone's family was always in the back of my mind. So in some small way, I know what the immediate commanders in this case are feeling. It's a sickening feeling and humbling as well; writing that letter, making preparations for memorial services and talking to the family left behind.

What I don't know is what the politicians are feeling. Most, especially in Bush's immediate circle of advisors - and especially those most involved in promoting and running this war, have never served. Chickenhawk has been overused and much misused. Civilian authority is vested by the Constitution without regard to former military service, and we should not be so cynical to assume that it is required to make the difficult decisions in prosecuting a war. But in this instance I wonder if there are some basic human feelings missing from Bush's cadre of neocons. They have let political expediency trump humanity. Here's Rumsfeld on this weekend's tragedy:

"It's clearly a tragic day for America," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington. "In a long, hard war, we're going to have tragic days. But they're necessary. They're part of a war that's difficult and complicated." A White House statement expressed grief for the loss "of all brave men and women in the military and elsewhere who pay the ultimate sacrifice to make the world safer and better."

These kinds of "tragic days" may be necessary in a war that makes America and world safer. But this war was never about making anyone safer. The rotating reason-for-war-of-the-day leave no doubt that this was a war of power; the neocons stretching their muscles in readiness for... what?

Now that the Iraqis have found a cache of anti-aircraft missiles (they wouldn't use them unless they have several) and figured out how to use them (or found an ex-Iraqi soldier who knows how and can train them), we can expect to see more attempts to shoot down our helicopters. And as they are emboldened will their next target be a C-17 cargo aircraft, perhaps loaded with replacement soldiers, lumbering in for a landing in Baghdad?

Will this incident, despite Rumsfeld's statement, spur serious reflection by those responsible for this war? I hope so; but I remain distressingly doubtful.