"Our hero is home!!" was written on the back of the maroon ellipse of a minivan parked in the bike lane, with all the other shitty cars that take over the bike lane every morning for swim practice.  Like they own the world.  But it was written in yellow (both my fave color and that famous hue of remembrance of absent military personnel) and had smiley faces all around it.  He made it home.  Thank You.  Please help him, and his family, with what happens next.

How would I feel if my boys were taken from me and sent to fight a war I completely oppose in a place that was home to millions of people who want to eradicate America altogether against an enemy that was entrenched and guerrilla?  I would never get over it, never be able to stop thinking about it.  And if they came home physically safe, that would be a miracle.  And what if they weren't okay mentally or emotionally?  My guess is that they wouldn't be.  The randomness of the violence there would be too much to bear, and something inside them would break.  Children are so fragile anyway, such lovers, such givers, such beautiful souls.  I don't know how they would survive without being hollowed out completely.  If they still had any intact self left, they might try to end things for themselves by wading, arms spread, into the line of fire  so the pain would be over and they wouldn't have to bring it all home with them, to relive for the rest of their tenure on this mortal coil.  It is heartbreaking how wrong war is, and how as I type those words, they fall as a tiny drop in an ocean of tears already shed over it.  Thus is the collective mourning of the soul of humanity, a lament the stars can hear.