Will war dead cross Bush's mind at inauguration? [View All]

[True_Blue]

Jan. 20 is an ineffably sad day for me, and not just this year when it falls on the inauguration of King George. On Jan. 20, 1970, my best friend, Robert J. Gasko of Mays Landing, N.J., died in the jungles of Vietnam, the victim of friendly fire, though the reason hardly matters now.

He was four months removed from his 20th birthday, five months removed from his wedding, at which I was his inept best man. At age 19, I knew so little about best-manning that when I was asked to give the toast I simply said, ''To Bobby and Janice.'' I thought that's what you were supposed to do. I wish I had said more because it's the last time I ever saw him alive, though not the last time I heard from him. ''Don't come over here,'' he wrote me. ''Don't even think about coming over here.''

Vietnam, where about 58,000 Americans lost their lives (plus as many as one million South and North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians) was a disastrous war, even an evil one. We shouldn't have been there in the first place; we didn't know how to fight it when we got there; and, when it was clearly time to get out, we couldn't figure out how to do it without losing face. So, for want of an exit strategy, and for the noble cause of diplomatic hubris, we sent thousands of young men to die.

The same thing is happening in Iraq. We are not sure why we're there (did anyone ever hear Bush mention the phrase ''Iraqi freedom'' before we started dropping bombs?) and we don't know how to fight it, and yet the administration plunges forward in smiley-face lockstep, never a doubt, never a discouraging word. Meanwhile, the blood keeps flowing. In the month that we retained the incumbent, 140 Americans died. Seventy-nine died while we argued about whether to sing Christmas carols in public school auditoriums. Twenty-seven have already died in what will undoubtedly be known as Eagles Super Bowl Month.
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