They commit blogs. They have cameras in their cellphones. They have digital cameras.

The music, writing and movies of this war are already available, from the boots on the ground.

Music is part of the war. They listen to Tupac and Disturbed as they get ready for battle, go into battle, and settle in for a bit of r and r. Movies provide catch phrases and slogans that are shouted during firefights and painted on tanks and Sharpied on helmets.

War is hell. Peace is hell. Hell is boredom, hell is living in a foreign country where you are not allowed to have a Bible or Penthouse. Hell is having to deny your basic nature as an animal while uncivilized people tell you that behavior is a really good idea. Hell is having the president and advisors who started the war slipping into the twilight of history while you get to hold the bag. Hell is doing your job and then being told that your job is a crime.

This is the biggest conflict for the United States since the Spanish American War to feature VOLUNTEERS. They were not drafted. They signed on the dotted line. They have a different attitude. And yet..

The Pentagon, that five-sided den of institutionalized stupidity, and studiously cultivated arrested mental and philosophical development, has deliberately denied their boys and girls the truth. The Pentagon likes war. It justifies it's existence. It is unnecessary to the true warriors. They don't need an idiot mall to justify their existence. A true warrior behaves himself until it's time not to behave. Then he misbehaves to the best of his ability.
The Pentagon has never really understood Col. Kurtz' comment in 'Apocalypse Now' (which was nothing of the sort). Kurtz told the assasin sent to kill him that he was 'an errand boy sent out by grocery clerks.' Nothing truer could be said about the Pentagon.

War is. You either embrace it fully and do it right or you hold it at a remove and fudge it when pushed to the wall. War is part of being human. War is part of advertising. It is part of agriculture. It is part of entertainment. It is both a disease and a cure.

There is no illusion of 'peace' without the threat of war or the recent experience of conflict.

Peace is not complacency. It is not comfort. It is not boredom. It is the intermission while the diploliars think up new ways to play with each other.

Our troops deserve to be told the truth. If they weren't in Iraq and Afghanistan, they would have been somewhere else. To quote the police chief in 'Young Frankenstein', "A riot is an ugly thing... and it's about time we had one."

September 11 was only the trigger. The chamber had been loaded for years. The only thing missing was a target. In the end, it didn't matter what the front sight was resting on.

This war will not end until the last survivor is dead. And the memory of this war will not end until every book, magazine, song and photo has disappeared. It is to be hoped that a lesson will be learned this time.