A telling and accurate statement in the article is that wars ultimately are reduced to "statistics, strategies, debates, origins and results." They fail to relay the most important thing which is the human experience, and, perhaps our failure to give that the proper attention is at least in part responsible for the fact wars keep reoccurring.

Dr. Cantwell relays in his article the experience, through letters, of his father who at age 18 enlisted in the Army for WWI, "The War to End All Wars." Unfortunately the title was untrue after just 25 years.

Cantwell's father talks in his letters about developing an entirely new view of life especially with respect to baseball. An avid fan when leaving for war, he indicated in his letters he no longer cared about the game or the players.

I'm a couple of generations removed from Cantwell's grandfather but I understand exactly how he felt.

I, too, went to the Army as a teenager under a little different circumstance. I was drafted during the Vietnam War as a result of a new method termed the lottery -- a lottery where you won no money. Based on your birthday, you were assigned a number which gave you the order you were to be brought into the service.

While there is no way to know the exact number of lives lost as a result of modern warfare, we can get pretty close. From the World Wars forward there have been roughly 1,200,000 lives claimed. Vietnam took the lives of over 58,000 soldiers. The cost is even higher than the soldiers who didn't get to enjoy life.

Their families suffered. Mothers, fathers, wives and children lived with pain many of us cannot imagine.

Even that isn't the total price. I get my medical treatment at the Veteran's Administration and every time I go I see those that are unable to hold jobs, homeless and suffering from conditions like Agent Orange; a condition they always will have.

At least from a Vietnam's soldier standpoint, though, the major pain comes from seeing sad facts, not wanting to believe them because you are idealistic but, your eyes don't lie.

The pain comes from seeing a British ship unload half her cargo at your port only to be told she is going to Hanoi to unload the other half. The pain comes from reading in U.S. papers how you are viewed even though you are there against your will but followed your conscience.

The ultimate pain comes when Robert McNamara writes a book saying how wrong the Vietnam War was, keeping in mind he was a hawk and the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War years.

War is indeed the human element.

References:

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/11/11/cantwelled.html

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_US_soldiers_were_killed_in_all_wars_fought_by_the_US

http://www.vietnam-war.info/casualties/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacNamaraVeterans Day: A Vet's ThoughtsThere have been over 1,200,000 soldiers killed in modern warfarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacNamara http://www.vietnam-war.info/casualties/http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_US_soldiers_were_killed_in_all_wars_fought_by_the_UShttp://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/11/11/cantwelled.html