Monday, January 1, 2007

Policing a Civil War

I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes before I could finish this beautifully written, heartbreaking story on the front page of the Washington Post today, by Sandhya Somashekhar.

The pictures, by Sarah L. Voisin, are equally stunning.

3 comments:

imaginaryconversations said...

First of all, I must admit I am guilty of an elitist attitude towards people, on an intellectual basis. So my knee-jerk reaction to deaths of soldiers is "well, he knew what he was choosing", or "he went to the army because he was too lazy to go to college and do the schoolwork". I logically know that I'm not right, but it's stories like these that make me actually feel it. I feel sorry for those people on a purely human level, without making distinctions based on education, ambitions, or anything similar.

All that aside, I feel horrible for that young girl. How unlucky to have that perfect relationship frozen at that stage in her mind. Reality can never measure up to that. Had they dated for longer they would've drifted apart with time, but now she's stuck with that perfect, tragic relationship as a benchmark for her future.

Rachel said...

This was a sad story. I can't imagine how devastated she would be if they had been together longer than 1 month.
A story about the loss of a loved one has no political leanings.

Ashburnite said...

I saw that in Wapo on Monday and bawled my eyes out. I just re-read it and cried like crazy again. So unbelievably heart-breaking.