Yes.

I know his parents well, great people.

I voted "Yes" in the poll because of people like them. I am rarely a proponent of military action, but the guilt that I do feel is because 0.1% of the population is paying a huge burden, another 0.2% or so is paying a smaller burden, and the remaining 99.7% of us have essentially no shared sacrifice.

Aside from the Jacobsens, I have another friend who is in his mid 40s with 7 kids. He joined the reserves many years ago. He has currently been overseas for about a year, and had an earlier 2 year tour, so he has been away from his family 36 out of the last 44 months. He's missed his oldest two son's weddings, his first two grandkids being born, two sons going on missions, and a whole lot more. Even when he comes back safely, he will have given up 20% of the time that his kids will live at home with him, trading it for living in a tent and working 80-90 hour weeks.

My guilt doesn't keep me up at night, but I don't know how anyone could not feel at least a little guilty in my situation.

I don't know that we need to feel guilty. I just think we need to feel gratitude and demonstrate unwavering support. Those who choose to serve country by risking life and limb deserve the honor they are due. They do an act of service that most of us won't, or can't.

OT: I have a younger brother who finished law school last year and has a good job with a firm in CA. Last month he called to tell me he spoke with the Army about joining the Special Forces and wanted to know what I thought. I didn't know what to say. He doesn't want JAG or anything like that – he wants combat training and experience. He hasn't pulled the trigger, but wasn't BS'ing me either. He gave me the rundown of what the recruiting guys told him, etc. What would you say?

I'd probably say, "is that bad between you and Mary? Have you thought about counseling?"

I had a coworker whose husband was a physician and had an obligation to the army. He kept trying to convince her that it was actually safer for him to be in special forces and go on their missions. She was pretty pissed off at him.

I agree with Tex but would usde more florid language. One additional way in which the ancient Greeks got it right is their virutual worship of their warriors. We should carry the ones who got shot at through the streets on bucklers and make them rich and famous. Adore them. Only then do we begin to compensate them.

didn't the photog who took the picture of the flag-draped coffins in the big cargo plane get punished or lose their credentials or something?

In reality the policy is to complain as much as possible if the dead are publicized or remembered, under the theory that if these dead become real human beings, then ordinary Americans will oppose the war.

No one sweeps the dead under the rug more than the current administration.

Multiple media sources provide daily scoreboard updates on US soldiers killed, so they can't be sweeping very much under the rug.

Did the media provide real-time tickers on casualty numbers in WWII?

Yes, they do. And you have seen all kinds of complaints from conservative sources (at least back in the days when it became clear that this insurgency was something here to stay, not the last vestiges like Cheney said).

Now not even the most liberal and the most conservative media care.

Needless to say the ones who paid the ultimate price, including becoming maimed for life, ought to be revered most of all. It sickens me to think that government wants to keep the people ignorant of the measure of their sacrifice for political reasons. This is why I love the battlefield memorials and memorials in DC and elsewhere that are so sublime but accessible to all.