An American Tragedy

It’s Memorial Day in the United States today, the official beginning of summer. Fierce Americans mark the day by beating their war drums; gentle Americans by beating their breasts. The newspapers, as usual, are full of improving homilies and exhortations. But this year there is something different, something inspiring and humbling. In the Washington Post the anti-war conservative Andrew J. Bacevich has marked Memorial Day with a tribute to his son, who died earlier this month in Iraq.

Bacevich teaches history and international relations at Boston University and is the author, most recently, of The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War.

A graduate of West Point, he served in Vietnam and began his writing career by contributing to The National Review, The Weekly Standard and Commentary, all pillars of neocon orthodoxy. Now he writes for the left-wing, anti-war Nation