Noted is the death of former football player and Arizona Cardinal's safety Pat Tillman, who walked away from a multi-million dollar career in the NFL to serve with the 75th Ranger Regiment in Afghanistan. Tillman quit football in early 2002. He avoided media contact after his decision to join the Army became public, saying only that he felt he needed to give something back to his country.

Tillman's life is no more or less worthy than any other American soldier who is serving or has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, it is his willingness to give up fame and fortune to do so that strikes me as unusual in modern America.

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Speaking of the dead, a Freedom Of Information Act request has pried loose hundreds of photographs of flag draped coffins containing American military dead being transported back home for burial. These are the pictures the Pentagon and this administration have been keeping away from the public eye, claiming a right to privacy for the families and relatives of the dead.

It was once tradition to allow pictures and video to be taken from a distance of the coffins as they arrived at Dover Air Force base and were unloaded beneath the watchful eye of a full color guard. Unfortunately, the Shrubsters have denied any access to the pictures or the air base, turning what would have been low key, respectful coverage into a contested political symbol. Shrub's true rationale was to keep this aspect of war out of the newspapers, while gladly handing out positive pictures of beaming soldiers in the desert, or video of our end of firefights.

But this cynical mindset is nothing new, not for an administration who has lied it's way into this war, and cannot seem to lie its way out, not for lack of trying. Iraq is where they wanted to go from the start of their time in office, and so they have dragged the rest of us along for the bloody ride. I think it only right and proper that every American see the stark, undeniable photographic evidence of the true cost of this war, of the lives given freely by those who serve in our armed forces, forces intentionally sent to their peril to fight an unnecessary war.

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Quoted from the Washington Post about the Republican smear campaign concerning John Kerry's military service:

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum has a tale of two soldiers:

George Bush, fresh out of Yale, uses family connections to join the Air National Guard in order to avoid serving in Vietnam. After serving four years of a six-year term, he decides to skip his annual physical, is grounded, and heads off to Alabama, where he blows off even the minimal annoyance of monthly drills for over six months.

Conservative reaction: why are you impugning the patriotism of this brave man? He got an honorable discharge and that's as much as anyone needs to know.

John Kerry, fresh out of Yale, enlists in the Navy and subsequently requests duty in Vietnam. While there, according to the Boston Globe, he wins a Purple Heart, and then follows that up with more than two dozen missions in which he often faced enemy fire, a Silver Star for an action in which he killed an enemy soldier who carried a loaded rocket launcher that could have destroyed his six-man patrol boat, a Bronze Star for rescuing an Army lieutenant who was thrown overboard and under fire, and two more Purple Hearts.

Conservative reaction: Hmmm, that first injury wasn't very serious. This is something that deserves careful and drawn-out investigation, and it would certainly be unfair to impugn 'craven or partisan motives' to those doing the impugning.

Are these guys a piece of work, or what?