Daily Blague

Sometimes, the most heroic action is to recognize the pointlessness of one's undertaking. Ordinary parents want to "redeem" the deaths of their soldier children by sending more troops to their doom. Paul E Schroeder is not one of these. What bitterness it must be, to recall what his son said about the campaign that finally killed him.

In our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was "less and less worth it," because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can't hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.

This in a war that ought not to have occurred.