When I was just sixteen my childhood sweetheart came home from Germany where he had been a combat infantry machine gunner. When I reached the age of seventeen,and we were engaged, I was not mature enough to realize how scarred he was by the war. He had been on in on the liberation of a prison camp and described lamp shades made of human skin and the emaciated survivors. He told me how hard hearted he had to become in order to function as a soldier in a war.

I never thought that such callous disregard of human life would ever be a part of American life. Viet Nam and now Iraq have been a slaughter of innocents. Both our young men and innocent men, women and children in Iraq have lost their lives or been horribly wounded.

I hate the term, collateral damage. It dehumanizes the victims. People who are living, breathing human beings with hopes and dreams common to us all.

Human and animal life are sacred to me. I guess I am just naive.