No One Else Has Suffered

On August 31, 2007 Jeff and Peggy Hubbard of Clovis, California attended the funeral of Nathan, their youngest son. He was their second son to die in Iraq and their oldest son, Jason, watched it happen.

"The two were in separate Black Hawk helicopters...on Aug. 22 when mechanical problems sent Nathan’s chopper plummeting to the earth. All 14 soldiers aboard were killed, including Nathan, an Army corporal on his first tour of duty at age 21. Jason, an Army sergeant, witnessed the aftermath of the tragedy from the air, accompanying his unit in disbelief and budding grief to the smoldering wreckage that held the remains of his little brother.

Nathan had joined the Army to carry on what he considered the unfinished business of his older brother Jared, a 22-year-old Marine killed by a roadside bomb in November 2004.

As of yesterday there have been 4,153 other American families that have buried their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands as a result of the folly that is Iraq. I will not say they died in vain but I do believe they sacrificed their lives needlessly and the suffering is not yet complete. But the opportunity to put an end to the mounting count is at hand this November.

The choice is yours, Barak Obama or John McCain. The former will rationally schedule the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The latter will keep our brave men and women in that country for an undetermined amount of time, against the wishes of the government of Iraq. So the question is, who gets it?

On the Today show yesterday, Meredith Vieira posed a question to Meaghan McCain about Obama's criticism of her father "not getting it". Her response should send chills down the spine of every American. She said "no one knows what war is like OTHER THAN MY FAMILY, PERIOD."

I guess the Hubbard family doesn't get it, the other 4,153 families don't get it, the families of the 58,159 soldiers that lost their lives in Vietnam don't get it and even the families of the 3 to 4 million Vietnamese or the 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians that died as a result of that conflict don't get it.

But thank God the McCain family does.