I have a few friends who didn't make it back and it tears me up inside to think about their families they left behind. Ryan was a medic who hit a landmine on a community outreach patrol. Lui didn't make it back from a combat patrol near Baghdad.  I try to spend Memorial Day the way they would, with a barbecue and a few war movies in the afternoon. I want Memorial Day to be just that, a day to remember those who never came home. A day to reflect on their sacrifices and what they mean to our country.

Then I think of the others. I think of the ignored warning about the main supply route being riddled with IED's and how the commander ordered a route clearance convoy to use the route before having enough information to know enough to clear the route effectively. The first vehicle in the patrol hit an IED. J came back to the U.S. in a box. Then I think of the ignored warning about the rigged house. We had imagery showing new cement on an old house and sent the imagery to the Captain in that battlespace and warned him to keep his soldiers away from the house. He sent a team anyways. The house was rigged and the four soldiers who went in to clear it never came back out.

The ignored warnings were sickening. The loss of fathers, husbands, and sons was completely avoidable. I want so badly to think of brave sacrifices today but I can't take my mind off of the senseless losses many of us saw.

/rant