It seems as though the generals have given up on these wars, but our grunts fight on. In this month’s The Atlantic magazine, retired Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, once commander of all our troops in Iraq, calls former President George W. Bush’s rush to war ‘a strategic blunder of historic proportions,’ calling for a ‘truth commission into the Iraq War. If we do not find out what happened, we are doomed to repeat it.’

Last fall, in Bob Woodward’s book ‘Obama’s Wars,’ Gen. David Petraeus said of Afghanistan, ‘You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. … This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives, and probably our kids’ lives.’ So the generals get to say they’ve changed their minds, but the grunts fight on.

Of the 256 Fort Drum and other local troops killed so far, a recent one was on his fourth combat tour. Somebody’s child, spouse, sibling, parent. Do they keep getting deployed until their numbers’ up? Our generals write books, but the grunts fight on.

Roland Van Deusen

Graduate student, 1975