Nothing gold can stay.

I've learned that metaphor many times already by just going through my time here. Cancer I can kind of understand.. Murder manufacture I just want to throw shoes at.

". . . But beauty seen is never lost,
God's colors all are fast;
The glory of this sunset heaven
Into my soul has passed . . .

-- John Greenleaf Whittier, Sunset on the Bearcamp

Made me cry then. Makes me cry now.

You cannot just meekly weep tears over this monstrous crime by a President of the United States of America - can you get that? - and keep your fingers crossed that it may not happen again to some other hapless Andy, Thomas Casey or hundreds of thousands of other cheated, innocent souls. PROSECUTE GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER. The only way. Condolences.

I think you have indeed returned the favor.

I selfishly pray for the safety of a young friend who writes to me from Afghanistan. When we worked in the same office, we argued after hours and the discussion often dissolved into laughter.

I am sorry for your loss, and I think of the value of friendship. I am sorry for the loss experienced by family, and I think of the value of love.

Thank you for this post. I have tremendous respect for your compassion and your work.

After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

What a completely shitty thing this "war of choice" is!! How many good men and women have to be murdered and seriously injured in the name of "oil"? Both our people and the Iraqis have suffered so badly. For that alone I hate Bush and his "associates-in-crime".

By the way, how old was Andy Olmsted?

He was about a month shy of his 38th birthday.

if you want to see the cost of war, visit a military cemetery. i was at the u.s. cemetery in manila a few years back - an endless, depressing sea of white crosses and stars, each representing a man or woman who died years too young, away from family and friends. honor them and all the others by remembering — and by doing our damnedest in their names so that others don't have to make the same sacrifice.

Dear Hillary,
Making sense of the senseless is, I guess, a task for poets. Quoting Wallace Stevens is a moving tribute to your friend. May he rest in peace.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
- General Smedley D. Butler

The horror is...they died for Bush. Bought his lies and he must be held accountable to all of us. If we let it slide it will happen again and again. Let god forgive him because I sure as hell won't.

Andy Olmsted's final post:

[...] I do ask (not that I'm in a position to enforce this) that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. I went to Iraq and did what I did for my reasons, not yours. My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side. If you think the U.S. should stay in Iraq, don't drag me into it by claiming that somehow my death demands us staying in Iraq. If you think the U.S. ought to get out tomorrow, don't cite my name as an example of someone's life who was wasted by our mission in Iraq. I have my own opinions about what we should do about Iraq, but since I'm not around to expound on them I'd prefer others not try and use me as some kind of moral capital to support a position I probably didn't support. Further, this is tough enough on my family without their having to see my picture being used in some rally or my name being cited for some political purpose. You can fight political battles without hurting my family, and I'd prefer that you did so.