Let me tell you a story about the first Gulf War.

If you ask me about the dates, they have slipped my mind. It was 1991, wasn't it? Which month, what day? I can't recall them. But if you were to ask me where I was the day Operation Desert Storm begun, I could answer without missing a beat:

I'm walking with my father to the auto-shop he has beneath my mother's dental office. The sun is at the low angle of mid-afternoon, when its light turns a mix of orange and gold, and the shadows creep upon you; the time when the day dies. One of my father's partners meets us before entering the place, and tells us the missiles have begun falling over Baghdad. That moribund light and those shadows leave a print on my mind.

Today, I'm not even sure at what moment I found out the current strike had taken place. The war began without me as I slept. And, sad as it sounds, it seemed as unavoidable as Thursday follows Wednesday, having set into a "let's get it over with" mindset since Monday's address, perhaps earlier.

There'll be many terrible losses coming out of this war, both material and human. Among the lesser ones is my last bit of indignation.

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
— Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)