Wounds You Can’t See - By BOB HERBERT

[kpete]

Op-Ed Columnist
Wounds You Can’t See

By BOB HERBERT
Published: June 24, 2008

The U.S. has been at war for years now, but ordinary Americans have never been asked to step up and make the kind of sacrifices that wars have historically required.

There is no draft. There are no shortages of food, consumer items or gasoline. We’re not even paying for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That multitrillion-dollar obligation has been shoved off to future generations. Incredibly, taxes have been lowered, not raised, since the wars began.

On the home front, this is as pleasant a wartime environment as one could imagine.

That’s actually an added danger for the young men and women who have volunteered to fight in those far-off lands. It’s too easy for the larger society to put them out of sight and out of mind. I asked a college student in Bridgeport, Conn., the other night if she or her friends ever talked about the war in Iraq. She said no.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24herbert.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[spanone]

1. k&r herbert once again gets it right