Apache over Baghdad

Naturally, I was curious when my phone rang this morning and my ex-husband's number appeared. Being tax season, I figured he was calling to share his sob story about having all that income, with nothing to claim, poor baby, and didn't answer. He didn't leave a message, which was perplexing, so I hunkered down and prepared to stand my ground (crying if necessary) when I called back. He told me, instead, that his friend from Ft. Campbell had been one of the pilots shot down and killed in Iraq the other day. His family had stayed here in Alabama, while he finished his final year before retirement.

His wife & I had walked our kids to school together; invited one another to Tupperware parties and giggled over wine at aviation functions. Their daughter has a crush on my son, and they joke over whose car kicks more ass (neither's).

I feel such an overwhelming sense of loss for the family that was just like mine; for the daughters and wife he left behind. It could have been us, and nothing in the war thus far has hit so closely. All the numbers and statistics and finger-pointing because the U.S. didn't offer enough troops for sacrifice...and I still don't understand why. Lousy, shitty war.