[$tinkle]

500 in 7 yrs

why, that's a little more than one soldier a week! what are we doing in afghanistan? it's a quagmire!

and then this:

Not long after Staff Sgt. Matthew D. Blaskowski was killed by a sniper’s bullet last Sept. 23 in eastern Afghanistan, his mother received an e-mail message with a link to a video on the Internet. A television reporter happened to have been filming a story at Sergeant Blaskowski’s small mountain outpost when it came under fire and the sergeant was shot.

Since then, Sergeant Blaskowski’s parents, Cheryl and Terry Blaskowski of Cheboygan, Mich., have watched their 27-year-old son die over and over. Ms. Blaskowski has taken breaks from work to watch it on her computer, sometimes several times a day, studying her son’s last movements.

and on & on w/ more grim reminders of this forgotten conflict.

it's like bushco grown tired of beating the drums of war & has passed off to the gray lady. such bravery

and finally:

“I think it isn’t true, and he will call in the middle of the night like he used to,” she said. “We would sleep lightly to listen for that blessed phone call.”

“Now,” she added, “we don’t sleep well at all.”

cueing special comment from keith ubermensch