On War

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On my recent flight from Oklahoma City to St. Louis, an airline employee took the microphone to make an unusual announcement. The aircraft was transporting the remains of a United States servicemember home for burial in Missouri.

I was surprised, to say the least. I feel completely disconnected from the war our country has been waging for the last decade, and I think that's not abnormal.  I tend to think of the military as something utterly separate from my peaceful civilian life. That commercial airliners are transporting the mortal remains of soldiers killed in action never occurred to me, but now that it has, it seems inherently wrong, and unsettling in a visceral and inexplicable way. It seems that their comrades in arms should carry them home on military aircraft, and that the horror of war shouldn't intrude on domestic travel arrangements.

I can't say why I feel that way. Perhaps if war intruded more on our daily lives, we'd be more inclined to stop it. Maybe every domestic flight for the last ten years should have carried a coffin draped with an American flag.

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