Sharing the Burden

File under why "I love Bob Herbert." He always manages to write
cohesively about things I'm thinking about & quite honestly don't
understand why everyone else isn't thinking about, or feeling too, &
therefore have difficulty writing about myself.

This is a follow-up to my recent post " I would argue." Herbert's
column "Sacrifices of war fall to only a few" Herbert talks to Sgt.
Mike Krause of the 101st Airborne Division of the army.

But there is a definite edge in his voice, an undercurrent of
bitterness, when he talks about the tiny percentage of the American
population that is shouldering the burden of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. "We're nowhere close to sharing the sacrifice," he said.
"And it should be shared, because it's only in that sharing that
society will truly care about what's going on over there.
 

"Right now it's such a small minority of families who have a stake in
all of this. I hear people say things like, 'We lost a lot of good
people over there.' I sort of snap around and say: 'We? You didn't
lose anybody.' You know what I mean? "

While most Americans are free to go about their daily business,
unaffected by the wars in any way, scores of thousands of troops have
been sent off on repeat tours into the combat zones.

Krause is proud of his service and still loves the military. "But
we're a nation at war," he said, "and we should all be in this
together."