Decoration Day

I've heard it said that the last Monday in May was set aside as the day to honor the fallen soldiers of the American Civil War. The full story is no doubt available somewhere on the Internet, if someone had a mind to search for it.

With the war in Iraq, this Memorial Day will also be a time for pundits to argue both sides of the issue - should we be there, is it a failure, when should we leave, and on and on. We in the western world have freedoms that we take for granted, a collection of rights that we do not think about because they are all around us, all the time. So when I hear the arguments, for and against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think of this, from the BBC news website:

Coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and players Nasser Ali Hatem and Wissam Adel Auda were killed in the al-Saidiya district of the capital.

Witnesses said the three were dressed in shorts and were killed days after militants issued a warning forbidding the wearing of shorts.

To me, that says it all.