Reply #24: Personal perspective [View All]

My brother died in Vietnam. Initially, you are numb and you mumble platitudes to take the pain away. Everyone is saying, 'He died for a good cause', so you say, "he died for a good cause".

Also, you are trying desperately to not deal with the pain that the death was worthless. You try to believe there was a reason, and you certainly can't entertain the thought that the people who sent him to be killed are souless idiots.

When that realization sinks in, (and it always sinks in, remember McNamara's Mea Culpa book?), you are filled with such fury and rage. Why do you think so many of us whose family member was killed in prior wars are so anti-war? Once you finally accept that it was all pointless and a pathetic waste of a precious life, you just become determined to stop the idiots from killing others....who are all really just cannon fodder to them, sitting ducks, pieces on a chessboard.

Cindy's progression was perfectly normal. It would have been very unusual if she had been able to accept early on that Casey's death was unimportant to the man who sent him to war. For her own psyche, she had to try to convince herself that bush really cared. Unfortunately, as she had months to think about his behavior, she finally had to accept the fact that he didn't care at all.