he jetski and landed on the beach, after his head met with a wooden bulkhead. When I found him on the beach, time stopped. Seven serious injuries, and 22 hours of surgery, and a miniscule chance of survival didn't stop him. He survived, and healed. We understand pain, and he taught us to understand strength. I also made a promise, that I would do my best to teach those I came in contact with that LIFE is the greatest gift we will ever receive. And that death, by anything other than natural process, is never noble.

When I see the pictures of the bodies of the Iraqi children laying in awkward positions in the rubble of their homes, I see them with my son's face. His body was contorted just the same. And what once might have made me cry, now just makes me angry and more motivated than ever to see this conflict over so that the healing can begin. Not just healing for our servicemen and their families, but healing for the Iraqi people, for the children who will remember this long into their adult years, and healing for this country.

My husband and I grieve with every family who has lost a loved one in this travesty of a conflict. My husband because he has lost another "brother," myself for knowing the pain of a mother and a wife. But, I will not grieve sitting in a chair, justifying that death as a noble sacrifice. To me, there are only two ways that death becomes noble.

The first is to die old. Ninety-five years old in one's sleep, having lived a life fulfilled by giving in one's own way to the community of the small part of the world in which one chooses to live.

The second, is through the honorable work of humanity as we fight to ensure that the causes of an unjust death are eradicated. By bringing a positive force into the world to replace the negative one that caused the death, we can now give noble significance to the memory of those who gave their lives in the name of Peace.

To sit and believe that death from this conflict, American or Iraqi, military or civilian has been a noble sacrifice, is to give yourselves another form of tranquilizer to stop the pain of grief. Until we are cleansed of the effect of the tranquilizers, pull ourselves into reality and force ourselves to look at the very painful side of this grief, America will never heal, and the war will continue.

To justify the deaths and permanent injuries of all of the men and women in not only this illegal conflict, but in all wars that have come before, we must fight to see that the Peace so eagerly talked about actually happens. The veterans of the World Wars, Korea and Viet Nam did not lose lives and limbs for the right of America to go to war again. I believe that their service will best be honored when America actually lives up to the ideals that for now, for many, are just lip-service.

In a New York Times article dated Jan. 2, a family member from one of the soldiers who became a casualty of this war was quoted in talking about the terrorists, "They don't like what we stand for." My husband and I had to ask, "What exactly does America stand for?"

At a recent college graduation we attended, graduates filed into the stadium to be honored for their achievements and set off on a new beginning to become the next hope for generating prosperity in America. Interestingly enough, not one person in the stadium stood for the National Anthem. They couldn't. It was not played. There was a time, when The Star Spangled Banner was something we stood for, proudly.

My husband left on his first tour in Iraq with a hesitant but committed belief that he would be fighting to defend what America stood for. Now, almost two years later, preparing for yet another deployment back to the hell we call Iraq, we ask again, "Are we really to believe that we are defending what America stands for, and what exactly is that, again?"

Is it the values defined in the United States Constitution?

Is it morality?

Is it The Ten Commandments upon which some in our administration claim their actions are based?

When we do stand for our National Anthem, are any of the above still the reasons we place our hands over our hearts, and let a tear slide down our cheek? If your answer is "YES," then how is it that we continue to allow this conflict to happen? We see none of those reasons reflected in our actions in Iraq.

As long as this conflict continues, their deaths will be in vain. Every new person who dies in this madness means that we still have not learned the lessons that every death was meant to teach.

Please honor the service of my husband, of our military, of our veterans by standing up to defend morality, to defend the Ten Commandments, defined in every religious philosophy based on Truth. Please stand to defend the United States Constitution, on which, with the the former, our country was founded. Please honor the service of every veteran from every war, including this horrendous mistake, by saying that you will do your part to see that the last soldier who died will be the last soldier to ever die an unjust death. Please fight to make every death that we have grieved for a noble one. Stand strong in your morality, and be true to your words, and reach, for a change, for the Highest Good. Peace happens when we are no longer afraid to recognize the Truth.

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Health, Wealth, & Happiness to You and Yours!

David Kamnitzer

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