Your Children 2: SCOTUS

Regarding the SCOTUS decision banning the death penalty for child rapist, i think this is just another rather misguided judgement from our Supreme Court. I shudder to think what their decision will be today regarding the DC ban against gun ownership.

Your Children 1: Political Ads

in response to the MoveOn add.

Silly Seals

Seems like something for high school wannabees.

Jihadists and AL Qaeda

Within a few minutes of Noman Benotman's arrival at the Kandahar guest house, Osama bin Laden came to welcome him. The journey from Kabul had been hard, 17 hours in a Toyota pickup truck bumping along what passed as the main highway to southern Afghanistan. It was the summer of 2000, and Benotman, then a leader of a group trying to overthrow the Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, had been invited by bin Laden to a conference of jihadists from around the Arab world, the first of its kind since Al Qaeda had moved to Afghanistan in 1996. Benotman, the scion of an aristocratic family marginalized by Qaddafi, had known bin Laden from their days fighting the Afghan communist government in the early '90s, a period when Benotman established himself as a leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

The night of Benotman's arrival, bin Laden threw a lavish banquet in the main hall of his compound, an unusual extravagance for the frugal Al Qaeda leader. As bin Laden circulated, making small talk, large dishes of rice and platters of whole roasted lamb were served to some 200 jihadists, many of whom had come from around the Middle East. "It was one big reunification," Benotman recalls. "The leaders of most of the jihadist groups in the Arab world were there and almost everybody within Al Qaeda."

Bin Laden was trying to win over other militant groups to the global jihad he had announced against the United States in 1998. Over the next five days, bin Laden and his top aides, including Ayman Al Zawahiri, met with a dozen or so jihadist leaders. They sat on the floor in a circle with large cushions arrayed around them to discuss the future of their movement. "This was a big strategy meeting," Benotman told one of us late last year, in his first account of the meeting to a reporter. "We talked about everything, where are we going, what are the lessons of the past twenty years."

Despite the warm welcome, Benotman surprised his hosts with a bleak assessment of their prospects. "I told them that the jihadist movement had failed. That we had gone from one disaster to another, like in Algeria, because we had not mobilized the people," recalls Benotman, referring to the Algerian civil war launched by jihadists in the '90s that left more than 100,000 dead and destroyed whatever local support the militants had once enjoyed. Benotman also told bin Laden that the Al Qaeda leader's decision to target the United States would only sabotage attempts by groups like Benotman's to overthrow the secular dictatorships in the Arab world. "We made a clear-cut request for him to stop his campaign against the United States because it was going to lead to nowhere," Benotman recalls, "but they laughed when I told them that America would attack the whole region if they launched another attack against it."

* * * * *

Unsurprisingly, Al Qaeda's leaders have been thrown on the defensive. In December, bin Laden released a tape that stressed that "the Muslim victims who fall during the operations against the infidel Crusaders ... are not the intended targets." Bin Laden warned the former mujahedin now turning on Al Qaeda that, whatever their track records as jihadists, they had now committed one of the "nullifiers of Islam," which is helping the "infidels against the Muslims."

Kamal El Helbawy, the Muslim Brotherhood leader who helped bring in moderates at the Finsbury Park mosque in London, believes that Al Qaeda's days may be numbered: "No government, no police force, is achieving what these [religious] scholars are achieving. To defeat terrorism, to convince the radicals ... you have to persuade them that theirs is not the path to paradise."

Read it all!

The more things change ...

the more things stay the same:

Want more George W. Bush foreign policy? Elect John McCain – or Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Regardless of who wins in November, the current foreign policy will live on in the next White House.

None of the main candidates has disavowed the war on terror. Each has called Mr. Bush tactically deficient. But the debate over the war on terror is over how, where and when. The candidates have all argued that they would do a better job of fighting it.

Administrations bequeath foreign policies to their successors that are then tweaked, but rarely transformed. The seeds of Ronald Reagan's Cold War strategy were sown in the defense buildup of the later Jimmy Carter years. President Bush's purported "obsession" with Baghdad began in the hawkish statecraft of Vice President Al Gore. In 1998, Bill Clinton made regime change official U.S. policy, and in 2003 Mr. Bush made it a reality.

The last great liberal hope to win the White House – Bill Clinton – committed more troops to more parts of the globe than any president since World War II. Since the end of the Cold War, America has undertaken at least nine military interventions overseas, under three presidents of both parties in two distinct historical eras (pre- and post-9/11). This history suggests that the next great liberal hope – Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton – would probably continue the trend.

Furthermore, the departure of Mr. Bush will hardly leave the nation's foreign relationships in tatters. Despite much American introspection, Euro-liberal sniping and Latin American leftist fantasizing, the quantity and quality of America's formal friendships have endured, if not actually increased, since 2001. Eighty-four governments, out of a world total of some 192, are formally allied with the U.S.

Foreign leaders such as France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel clearly see that their true interest resides in maintaining and renewing their relationships with the U.S. Few governments have prospered by severing such bonds. In Asia as well, nations are looking to strengthen their ties to America. China needs the U.S. market. India is moving toward America, not away.

The state and your children

The latest news item regarding the state and your children comes from Texas remains unsettled. Despite the best of intention, the state and its representatives, whether social workers or doctors, should think of their own fallibility before they act. Withness this story from the WSJ.

Mrs. West found a new physician who examined Richard and concluded he was severely mentally retarded. The physician explained that Richard might learn to walk but would never talk. He would always have the mentality of a three-year-old and need 24-hour care. "It was a relief knowing it wasn't my imagination" or fault, says Mrs. West.

Soon pregnant again, Mrs. West became overwhelmed at the thought of caring for a newborn and a mentally disabled toddler, along with four older kids. The community offered no programs to help Richard. Having come from North Dakota, the Wests had no family nearby. "I didn't know what to do," says Mrs. West.

She asked her doctor. Gently, he told Mrs. West it would be better for Richard and everyone else if he was institutionalized. "You have to think of the other kids," she remembers the physician telling her.

* * * * *

None of the children pressed their parents to find out how Richard was doing, although privately they wondered. "Anytime the family was together at Christmas or Thanksgiving, I would think how we used to play around him on the floor," says his older brother Bob.

In the 1980s, the state informed the Wests that Richard was being moved a couple hundred miles east to another state facility. A few years later, the Wests received a letter saying Richard was being placed in a smaller residence. The letter didn't say where. The Wests felt they lacked standing to ask because their son was a ward of the state.

He had, in fact, been transferred to a group home in Baker City, about 300 miles away. There, workers wondered about Richard's family. "Do they know he exists? Do they care?" says caregiver Tracy Hylton. "Many families don't want to have contact, and when there isn't any contact, we have to assume that is the case."

The turning point came the evening that Jeff West saw the television interview with Mr. Daly, the Oregon man who had found his long-lost mentally disabled sister. Suddenly, Jeff West was struck with the desire to find Richard.

Other siblings, however, were apprehensive. "Do you really want to do that?" brother Larry remembers saying. "Are you going to bring up things that are hurtful?"

Debby Peery, the second-youngest, wondered what their responsibility might be and how others would react.

"I was a little nervous about what the caretakers would think of us suddenly showing up after 40 years," she says. "But I was also excited."

All worried about their parents. "I didn't know how much guilt they carried," says Jeff West. At that point, Jeff didn't know his parents had recently and unsuccessfully tried to find Richard so that he could receive Mr. West's pension.

When asked about tracking down his disabled son, the elderly Mr. West responded, "Go for it."

* * * * *

Weeks later, the family met with Richard for the first time in 40 years. His caregivers, Ms. Hylton and Carrie Baird, drove Richard to the home of a sibling. They worried whether the West family would take Richard away from his group home, where he was comfortable and loved. "It would have been hard for us if he left," says Ms. Hylton.

* * * * *

Over lunch and through the afternoon, the Wests listened to Ms. Hylton and Ms. Baird describe how Richard loves music, does his own laundry, washes dishes, mows the lawn and sets the table. He has a job refilling ink cartridges. And a girlfriend: On dates to McDonalds they eat apple pie. Always known to his family as Ricky, he now preferred to be called Richard.


* * * * *

At Fairview, Richard learned things his parents never thought possible. By 12, he could dress, feed himself, catch a ball, fold pajamas and fish. He had friends and foster grandparents who took him out for ice cream. At 16, Richard taught himself to whistle. He loved Volkswagens and was sometimes found sitting in one in the Fairview parking lot.

* * * * *

Mrs. West sends Richard towels and sweatshirts embroidered with his name. When getting dressed in the morning, Richard selects the same shirts repeatedly -- the ones his mother sent. "He knows it came from his family, and it means something," says Ms. Hylton.

.

Parents, never give up your children to the state without a fight!

Memorial Day

Yesterday was memorial day. It was a warm and beautiful day. We bought a grand old vintage faded US flag, as well as a pole and a pole mount. I promptly installed and mounted the pole on a fence post and flew the flag. Since it wasn't next to the house itself, the wind caught it as often as possible.

We worked in the yard and had a cook out.

As night fell I lowered the flag and folded it up, and in a nice safe clean place I laid it down.

Oil and Gas, the money

from Powerline:

Stephen Simon amplified:

Exxon Mobil is the largest U.S. oil and gas company, but we account for only 2 percent of global energy production, only 3 percent of global oil production, only 6 percent of global refining capacity, and only 1 percent of global petroleum reserves. With respect to petroleum reserves, we rank 14th. Government-owned national oil companies dominate the top spots. For an American company to succeed in this competitive landscape and go head to head with huge government-backed national oil companies, it needs financial strength and scale to execute massive complex energy projects requiring enormous long-term investments.
To simply maintain our current operations and make needed capital investments, Exxon Mobil spends nearly $1 billion each day.

Because foreign companies and governments control the overwhelming majority of the world's oil, most of the price you pay at the pump is the cost paid by the American oil company to acquire crude oil from someone else:

Last year, the average price in the United States of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was around $2.80. On average in 2007, approximately 58 percent of the price reflected the amount paid for crude oil. Consumers pay for that crude oil, and so do we.
Of the 2 million barrels per day Exxon Mobil refined in 2007 here in the United States, 90 percent were purchased from others.

Another theme of the day's testimony was that, if anyone is "gouging" consumers through the high price of gasoline, it is federal and state governments, not American oil companies. On the average, 15% percent of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits. These figures were repeated several times, but, strangely, not a single Democratic Senator proposed relieving consumers' anxieties about gas prices by reducing taxes.

U.S.S. Independence

The US navy first Littoral class ship is launched.

Kyoto Hypocrisy

From Willisms:

911: more conspiracies

from the WSJ:

CAIRO, Egypt -- Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al Qaeda terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

As seen below, the ONN has it dead on regarding AlQaeda's response to it being discredited for 911.

911 Debate on ONN

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

Trigger Happy

From the WSJ

According to the 2006 General Social Survey, which has tracked gun ownership since 1973, 34% of American homes have guns in them. This statistic is sure to surprise many people in cities like San Francisco – as it did me when I first encountered it. (Growing up in Seattle, I knew nobody who owned a gun.)

Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small nor downtrodden group.

Nor are they "bitter." In 2006, 36% of gun owners said they were "very happy," while 9% were "not too happy." Meanwhile, only 30% of people without guns were very happy, and 16% were not too happy.

In 1996, gun owners spent about 15% less of their time than nonowners feeling "outraged at something somebody had done." It's easy enough in certain precincts to caricature armed Americans as an angry and miserable fringe group. But it just isn't true. The data say that the people in the approximately 40 million American households with guns are generally happier than those people in households that don't have guns.

The gun-owning happiness gap exists on both sides of the political aisle. Gun-owning Republicans are more likely than nonowning Republicans to be very happy (46% to 37%). Democrats with guns are slightly likelier than Democrats without guns to be very happy as well (32% to 29%). Similarly, holding income constant, one still finds that gun owners are happiest.

Not quite clinging or bitter.

War: Quotation Therapy

““Pacifism and Prussianism [militarism] are always in alliance, by a fatal logic far beyond any conscious conspiracy.”
and
“That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon.”

“
-G. K. Chesterton
(HT Michael W. Perry)

The first quote is particularly fascinating, in that does the rejection of aggression increases the risk of aggression against you? Probably not, but the correlary certainly is false. Just do because you reject aggression does not mean aggression will not visit you. Rejection is a conceptual/abstract/state of mind. Aggression is an actual physical act. There is a huge chasm between a thought and an act. None of us can wish things into being.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”

“
–John Stuart Mill

Free Trade: Colombia

While this article primarily focus on the free trade pact with the US, it also reveals the significant socio-political progress of Colombia from a near-fail state besieged by leftist guerrilas and the Medellin drug cartel.

Given the progress made, I think a Free Trade agreement has tremendous potential to support continued economic progress in Colombia. Thus it is shameful not to even vote on the agreement just because this is an election year. The elected leaders, Democrats in particular, who refused to put this to a vote act like cowards without integrity.

NeoModernism: question & answer

Question posed by Shoegirls

Btw, this contradicts itself and doesn't make sense:

"Neomodernism is a philosophical position based on modernism but addressing the critique of modernism by postmodernism, namely that universalism and critical thinking are the two essential elements of human rights and that human rights create a superiority of some cultures over others. Hence equality and relativism are "mutually contradictory". Thus NeoModernism has a moral code."

Are you stating that universalism creates equality, or denies it? I can only assume you subscrbe to the universal ethic, as you subscribe to postmodernism. However, your statement above seems to confuse the issue with the added nature of equality. So, which is it, and, how does universalism or relativism subjugate equality?

Modernism is re-analysis and rejection of all that is to build anew and better.
Postmodernism believes that the result of modernism, what is new and better, is erroneous because new and better can only exist in reference to what was, and a total rejection of what was means it cannot be used a reference. Once you reject the reference point, all becomes universal and relative. Without reference point, or if each is its own reference point, all are then equal.
But if all is relative, then where is morality?

I believe that culture is like the clothes we wear. It suggests who and what we are but cannot define us. What defines us is our biology as human being, living, emotive, and contemplative. That universality of morality has to be based in our biology. Thus culture cannot be a reference point for our morality (which seeks to define how we should interact with each other).

Negative U.S. media reports on Iraq linked to increased insurgent attacks

Somewhat obvious but I am glad that a reputable institution has studied this

Researchers at Harvard say that publicly voiced doubts about the U.S. occupation of Iraq have a measurable "emboldenment effect" on insurgents there.

Periods of intense news media coverage in the United States of criticism about the war, or of polling about public opinion on the conflict, are followed by a small but quantifiable increases in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq, according to a study by Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government.

The increase in attacks is more pronounced in areas of Iraq that have better access to international news media, the authors conclude in a report titled "Is There an 'Emboldenment' Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq."

The researchers studied data about insurgent attacks and U.S. media coverage up to November, tracking what they called "anti-resolve statements" by U.S. politicians and reports about American public opinion on the war.

"We find that in periods immediately after a spike in anti-resolve statements, the level of insurgent attacks increases," says the study, published earlier this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading U.S. nonprofit economic research organization.

Milly

While in Chicago last week for a business meeting, my fiance and I had an opportunity to attend a mini-fashion show put on by Neiman Marcus for Michelle Smith's "Milly" line of women wear. I was able to exchange a few words with her husband (who came from NYC to support her efforts, Kudos!) and even their little baby girl Sophia.
I think she has a great eye for colors and patterns. Especially the subtle use of patterns in one color. I think the cuts and shapes are fresh and modern though not distinctive. Her designs though are clean and appealing, with a sense of the classics refreshed and modernized in a fun way. Overall I, and my fiance, like her work.

Guitar Heroes

Michael Yon artfully reviews Guitar Heroes:

The Predator peered down on the terrorists planting the bomb. There were too many targets for one Hellfire missile, and it’s better to conserve the weapon when possible, since the Predator must fly far to reload.

A group of four Kiowa Warrior pilots were only a few minutes away from the enemy, but their helicopters were on the ground and the engines were cold, while the pilots were waiting in a building near the runway, playing Guitar Hero to pass the time.

A soldier interrupted the Guitar Hero session, telling the pilots to get in the air. Orders would come over the radio. The pilots abandoned Guitar Hero and raced out the door into the cold night to their OH-58D Kiowa Warriors, economy-sized helicopters that would make a Ford Pinto seem spacious. The pilots crammed two each into the two helicopters, strapping in, cranking engines, while radio chatter had already started. The pilots learned that the Predator had identified a target, which it would laser-designate for a Hellfire shot from a Kiowa.

Minutes after the first alert, rotors were chopping the cold air, the instrument readings looked good. The pilots changed the pitch of their rotors to bite the air and lifted slightly off the ground, backing out of their parking spaces like cars. After backing out, they stopped in a hover, and began to move forward, pulling away from the other helicopters. The Kiowa Warriors lifted into the sky over the runway, heading south, then east toward the lights of the city of Mosul only a minute away. They didn’t get far.

The Last Letter Home

In 1864, with the nation wracked by civil war, President Lincoln wrote a letter1 expressing his condolences to a grieving Boston woman, mother of five men all believed at the time to have been killed in battle. (The letter is a replica.)











From the WSJ.

When a soldier falls, commanders face a profound task: Accounting for a lost life to the family
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
March 8, 2008; Page A1

ORGUN-E, Afghanistan -- "How do you start a letter like this? How do you end it?"

On a raw November morning here, along the wild frontier bordering Pakistan, Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel spoke those words as he sat down to write to a father who would never see his son again.

Images ran through the colonel's mind. His own two toddler boys, growing up quickly every day he is away at war; the parents of Private First Class Jessy Rogers, whose own child would be forever 20 years old, his age when insurgents detonated a bomb under his Humvee.

Lt. Col. Fenzel, commander of the 1st Battalion (Airborne) of the 503rd Infantry Regiment, started writing, then stopped again. He pressed his forehead into his palms. "Jesus, this is hard," he said.

Many things have changed during hundreds of years of American warfare. But much as they did during the Revolution, Army commanders still write letters, often by hand, to soothe the bereaved, share stories of the good times and -- perhaps -- describe the circumstances of death.

The letters began as a common courtesy among militiamen fighting for independence from England in the 18th Century. Shortly after World War II, the task became obligatory. After the next of kin is notified, via telegram or a knock on the door, the dead soldier's commander is to write a detailed letter explaining what happened.

"The letter should show warmth and a genuine interest in the person to whom it is addressed," instructed the 1948 Bureau of Naval Personnel Manual, in its concise, six-paragraph passage on the matter.

These days, Chapter Eight of Army Regulation 600-8-1, "Preparation and Dispatch of Letters of Sympathy, Condolence, and Concern," has grown to eight pages. The rules can be chillingly specific. "Avoid unfitting compliments and ghastly descriptions," they say. "Do not send photographs depicting casualties."

That's not much help to a commander who sent a soldier to his death.

Each time a man goes down, Lt. Col. Fenzel finds himself struggling for words to ease the pain. Was the death meaningful? Was a life cut short still lived to its fullest? Had the Army turned boy into man? What consolation is there in knowing that a son or husband died not alone, but surrounded by friends?

"Sir, we are so very fortunate to have known and served with your son," the colonel wrote to PFC Rogers's father, David Rogers, a 46-year-old construction worker in Alaska. "We all know the irreparable loss you and your strong family have suffered, and we also know there is very little any of us can say that will provide you any comfort."

Lt. Col. Fenzel, the 40-year-old son of a suburban Chicago car dealer, has already notched tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. On previous deployments, he was the No. 2 in his unit. This time he's in command.

Crested Stationery

So before coming here from his battalion's home base in Italy, he bought some parchment stationery bearing the wing-and-sword crest of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He knew he would likely have to write letters such as these. He didn't want to use printer paper.

His 800-strong battalion has lost 12 men since it arrived last May. The U.S. has lost 485 troops overall in Afghanistan since 2001. Last year was the coalition's most deadly since the war began.

PFC Rogers died in July, along with three of his comrades, in a roadside bombing -- one of the most common causes of death here. A fifth soldier in the Humvee, badly burned, later died from his injuries.

Lt. Col. Fenzel routinely greets his men as "brother" at combat outposts and in chow-hall lines. But he didn't know PFC Rogers very well. In fact, the social distance between a young private and a battalion commander is vast. Officers are prohibited from friendships with enlisted soldiers that could create the appearance of favoritism.

Soon after the death, Lt. Col. Fenzel invited four of PFC Rogers's squad-mates to his office. They crowded onto a small sofa, where they talked about their friend for an hour and a half.

It gave the colonel a better sense of the young man. He and other soldiers had already phoned the family to offer immediate comfort. Still, months passed before the colonel was ready to write the letter that would stand as a more permanent record.

"I wait to find the words, and they will come," he says.

Leaders have long struggled with the ambiguity of simultaneously commanding and consoling. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote to Lydia Bixby of Boston, whose five sons were believed killed in the Civil War. "I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming," President Lincoln wrote. "But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save."

Lt. Col. Fenzel found his words in November. One evening he returned from a mission, eased off his body armor and savored some new photos of his two boys sent by his wife. He was struck by how much they had grown since he had left for Afghanistan just six months earlier.

The next morning, he knew it was time to give PFC Rogers's parents a glimpse into their son's military life.

PFC Rogers grew up in Chickaloon, an Alaskan village of 200 people, 12 of whom were his brothers and sisters. He was the fourth child, home-schooled with his siblings by their mother, Donnetta.

The family lives on a mountainside, 450 steps above the glacial Matanuska River. As a child, Jessy and his siblings would play on the riverbank.

"Jessy always enjoyed the double-take any of us would give him the first time we found out just how big his tight-knit family really was," Lt. Col. Fenzel wrote to Mr. Rogers.

In his letter, the colonel described PFC Rogers's adventures with his D Company buddies, snowboarding in Italy's Dolomite Mountains, forging the bonds that would carry them into combat together.

Mountains, Memories

The Italian slopes reminded the private of home, Lt. Col. Fenzel wrote. "We all knew that Jessy's heart was right there in Alaska."

Jessy joined the Army because he was angry about the Sept. 11 attacks. But he also hoped to see a bit of the world. "I want to do something different," his mother remembers him saying after he returned from the recruiter.

He always told his mother that, after his eventual discharge, he would return to Alaska, build a cabin on the family property and work construction with his father and four brothers, who roam the state from project to project, living in rustic camps.

"The only thing that gives any of us any real comfort -- and I've said this to myself over and again -- is knowing that he gave his life fighting for our great country, as a hero and alongside men that he loved and respected," Lt. Col. Fenzel said in his letter.

As he wrote that morning, the colonel stopped and read his own words aloud. His voice broke.

After Jessy's death, the Rogers family received a boxful of condolence letters. The ones that meant the most came from Lt. Col. Fenzel and other servicemen.

"They're in a war, and he takes the time to write a hand-written letter to us," says Mrs. Rogers, 46. "That's what I noticed right off the bat."

The letter helped her envision her son's Army life, his friends, pleasures and hardships. "We are Christian, and we believe in a living God. ... Death is something that doesn't bother us," Ms. Rogers says.

"This leaves a huge gap, but I know where he's at," she says. "I had this fear for Jessy, and I'm glad he's out of harm's way now."

The Army assigns responsibility for writing condolence letters to battalion commanders such as Lt. Col. Fenzel. But other individuals, up and down the chain of command, are free to send notes of their own.

The most intimate ones are often penned by younger, lower-level officers who knew the fallen soldier best. Officers such as 30-year-old Capt. John Gibson of Shreveport, La.

Capt. Gibson, a West Point graduate whose cheeks are sunburned from the Afghan sun, commands a company of 180 or so of the soldiers in Lt. Col. Fenzel's 800-strong battalion.

Ever since he first saw combat in Iraq five years ago, Capt. Gibson says he has prayed that he would never have to write a condolence letter. In his fatigues he carries a piece of paper that reads: "A dead soldier who has given his life because of the failure of his leader is a dreadful sight before God."

His first and, so far, only such letter was sent to the mother of PFC Thomas Wilson, a quick-witted 21-year-old from Woodstock, Va., who dropped out of a college wildlife-and-fisheries program to enlist.

PFC Wilson was in charge of the armory at Orgun-E, maintaining the unit's rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons. It's a job that could keep a soldier in the relative safety of a well-defended base.

Instead, PFC Wilson talked his way onto patrols. On one occasion he asked his sergeant to go on a mission with the scouts. He started readying his gear even before he got a reply, pre-empting a possible "no" with a loud "Roger, first sergeant."

The paratroopers patrol along dried riverbeds and steep mountainsides, a landscape painted in every shade of brown. Just 20% of the 300,000 residents of Paktika province are thought to be literate, and most of those can only read verses of the Koran. The troops try to win good will by providing mosque-refurbishment kits that include solar-powered speakers and new prayer rugs for the mullahs.

But the Americans also engage in frequent firefights with insurgents who cross the border from nearby Pakistan.

Ambush Near Orgun-E

When PFC Wilson's convoy was ambushed near Orgun-E last summer, he was manning the turret machine gun in a Humvee. He fired off two cans of ammunition. When he bent over to grab a third, an insurgent's armor-piercing round drilled through the Humvee's protective metal and into his head.

The private died at the scene. His fellow soldiers placed a blue tarp over his body.

Capt. Gibson is keenly aware that his decisions carried PFC Wilson to the place where he died. He doesn't doubt his own orders. But the shock of losing his first man was sharp.

The captain recalls pulling back the tarp and putting his hand on PFC Wilson's forehead to gently close the private's eyes. "I feel like I've let you down," he remembers saying.

Later, he decided to write to PFC Wilson's mother, Julie Hepner. His intention was to describe what a fine soldier her son had been. Yet he wasn't comfortable describing the precise circumstances of his death.

"Do you include the little things? The smell?" he says. "Do I include that I still have a pair of gloves that have his blood on them?"

Capt. Gibson says he decided to leave those details out. Instead, he told Ms. Hepner, a single mother with four children, that the other paratroopers spent five days hunting down the insurgents responsible for the ambush.

Capt. Gibson says he read his letter aloud to himself, and crunched up two drafts before feeling he had struck the right tone.

Only later did he learn that Ms. Hepner had never received the letter from him. So, recently, Capt. Gibson sat down to write it again.

'Your Brave Son Thomas'

Meantime, last October, Lt. Col. Fenzel had written his own letter to Ms. Hepner, 47, who owns a small office- and house-cleaning business in Woodstock. "It has been almost a month since we lost your brave son Thomas to enemy fire," it began. "And the days that pass in between don't make it any easier to be without our brother, your son."

The colonel went on to describe how, during the fatal ambush, PFC Wilson manned his machine gun "bravely and brilliantly" in an intense, 30-minute firefight, before he was shot. His actions saved the lives of 10 other paratroopers, the colonel wrote.

"Please also know that you have gained nearly 800 of Thomas's brothers as your sons, if you'll have us," he wrote to Ms. Hepner.

It was the message she wanted to hear. "What more can a mother ask for," she says, "than knowing that he died in the arms of people who loved him?"

Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com

Anoher Example why the WSJ is worth reading and subscribing to.