War Stories

The Toledo Blade's Pulitzer Prize-winning series on the Tiger Force unit in Vietnam is very important reading. Not because there are parallels to between the events reported in the series and the current military activities in Iraq. But because it demonstrates that American soldiers are not always virtuous because they are American, that the American government often does not tell the truth about the wars it fights, that secrecy leads to abuses, that dehumanizing others leads to inhuman acts, and that questioning the conduct of the military and its civilian leaders can be an act of patriotism.

(Link via Altercation.)