It saddens me to view this knowing that two of my nephews who are brothers, one of whom is already in Afghanistan, and the other being inducted into the army next week and is expected to be deployed to Afghanistan like his younger brother. He's only doing it so that he miraculously may be able to be by his brother's side in this bitter war. My cousin, who is their mother, is devastated by their decision to be in the army. But at the same time, she's trying to be brave and strong and supportive of her sons decision and I've had to learn to keep my shut about my own opinions. It will be hard for me to do this this coming Saturday when we are having a 'going away' party for my nephew. The other sad part about this is, she has a 3rd son who just graduated from High School this past summer and may be thinking of doing the same thing. ALL 3 graduated with honors and are respectful, bright, well mannered young men who may have a bright future ahead of them. They've called themselves as a 'band of brothers'. There's nothing patriotic about this that I can see and it's been really hard for me to keep my opinions to myself whenever I'm around their family. The sickening part about this was when an officer from the army came to my nephew's graduation holding up a HUGE CHECK (2ft x 6ft) with my nephew's name on it in the amount of $40,000.00.

So, in close, I want to Thank you, Barbra, for putting this out. Even though I know my cousin feels as if she needs to support her children's decision, I'm sending her this link to review and want her to be brave and step up to the plate and stop this senseless deployment of innocent young men to a war that should have never been fought.