Minstrel Boys

Author and Foreign Policy magazine columnist Tom Ricks posted this short, grim and poignant note on the meaning of a death in combat. It's not clear who the writer is, but it doesn't matter:

"SOMEONE dies in combat. At Brigade level, he's a social security number and a status that gets tracked to Landstuhl. At Division, he's a storyboard. At Corps, he's a statistic. At Platoon and Company, he's a gaping wound in the soul of a hundred men. To his family, it's the end of the world."

Haunting. It's a reminder that however required or justified, war is a crime. That, in turn, reminds me of the old Irish air by Thomas Moore:

"The minstrel boy to the war is gone, in the ranks of death you'll find him ... The minstrel fell but the foeman's chains, could not bring his proud soul under ..."