who are we fighting for?

garbled syntax aside, this was in today's ny times, in an article re: the wikileaks, re: civilian deaths in iraq since we invaded:

Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

eta, and who's fighting whom?

The war in Iraq spawned a reliance on private contractors on a scale not well recognized at the time and previously unknown in American wars. The documents describe an outsourcing of combat and other duties once performed by soldiers that grew and spread to Afghanistan to the point that there are more contractors there than soldiers.

old home week

more like 18 hours, but this past weekend i attended my high school reunion. over the years have remained semi- in-touch with the girls who were my closest friends, but as they had children and moved to places that i have a totally selfish lack of desire to ever visit, i don't see them much. they worried about me (probably still do) because i never married nor had kids and just don't fit the mold.

after maddening adventures with public transport and finally getting to our god-forsaken little burg i was greeted by bursts of lady-squealing and lots of hugs. my friends looked great. totally great. thin, fit, good haircuts, happy.

my window was so small though, there wasn't much time for really catching up except on the very superficial surface of life. "how old are your kids?" college? fucking christ on a stick. the status of everybody's parents. they all knew about the condition of my mother, younger than all of theirs, and that elicited much sympathy. i didn't want to bring a pall so we all easily slid elsewhere with the talk.

the reunion itself was more fun than i had hoped, but full of people of whom i had no memory, even after seeing their yearbook pic. yikes.

a handful of the guys still looked good, but most looked awful. awful. fat, bald, toting mousy wives. one guy with hair-plugs, another husband with a fierce mullet. about half the women looked terribly middle-aged with atrocious suburban haircuts, and frumpy fat-lady clothes.

one transgendered person who does not make a pretty woman.

beyond the surface though? few divorces, many in long-term marriages. 2,3,4, even 5 kids. many men self-employed and the rest in finance or tech. quite a few with summer homes. those struggling or bereft are far less likely to turn up at a shindig like this, but i can only hope it was a representative sampling.

for perspective, i had two conversations that nearly had me in tears. one man who was part of our regular crew had a son in a bicycle accident a few years back. for whatever reason the saga was profiled on their local station and i had seen the video. the boy was in a coma for a few weeks, but came out and is up and about. he will never be "normal", but he is alive. it was amazing to see how changed d. is as a man and listen to how his wife and other children rallied and coped. the vision of wonder on his face, his gratitude at being given back his son, made me glad to be human and know this man.

a second man, (i remember him as funny, but gentle, and he helped me out of a few scrapes with less than upstanding guys) who was not in "our" circle, but, say, the next ring out, had married a dancer when in his 30s. in hindsight he knows that her moody artistic temperament was a veil for something far more damaged. she failed to commit suicide and now rests in a vegetative state in a home. his grief and sadness were so close to the surface as to be pouring out of him. as if his wounded heart was held there, beating in his hands, each in and out a pulse of despair. his pain overwhelmed me.

in between such high and low, the rest of us are cosseted by "normal" life, i guess. even me?