“There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower

What’s worse is when that child is a young man in his prime, sacrificed on the altar of a war that should never have been begun. As they used to say in Nam. “He was wasted.” And if a waste is the same as dying in vain, then there are a few thousand that have died in vain in Iraq. The conservative stomach has no place for dying in vain. If you die for a cause, it must be worthwhile regardless of who ordered you into the meat grinder. No one would ever do that, would they?

And of course, all conservatives are pro-life—when it comes to their own. But when it’s our troops who will be blown up in senseless slaughter, the conservatives all seem to be abortionists.

Until young people arrive at the conclusion that they are not immortal, that it’s always the other guy who dies, they will continue to fall for the “Attaboys!” of the zealots who will not do their own fighting.