I asked you a question/ I didn't need you to reply
I accidentally read the obituary for Timothy Moshier today. I didn’t mean to, and it’s easy to avoid. US news media outlets pretty much obscure the death factor, occasionally giving you an official tally if you’re really looking closely, but even then it’s just some number. It’s just some totally random figure you contemplate briefly before going back about your business for the day. And it’s easier that way. But it’s harder today, as I sit there in the waiting room of a doctor’s office reading the paper. It’s hard not to freak out at the notion that there really is no line of reasoning, and that nothing makes much sense of things.

Timothy Moshier was a captain in the US Army, who died flying a helicopter in Iraq. He was 25 years-old and was married with a child. His obituary describes him as a patriotic young man, who died doing what was asked of him and what he wanted to do.

It’s easy to find all kinds of holes in this argument. And depending on who you are and how you look at, you may have already located those things. Very few people I know would at this stage declare any kind of righteousness in terms of US foreign policy. What was laughably being called by some stations “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at the beginning of the invasion could at this point be considered full on hyperbole. And it’s easy to be so smart. But it seems to require something of you, too. Something more than just hanging around in a waiting room. But first I shed a tear for Timothy Moshier, and promise to try harder now.