Caskets demand explanations.
Thirteen American service members have been killed and more than 300 wounded since President Donald Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu launched their war against Iran a month ago. For the families who’ve lost sons and daughters, the American commander in chief’s shifting explanations for the war are infuriating. He’s listed more than half a dozen so far — including regime change, ending Iran’s nuclear program and destroying that nation’s military. He’s even called the whole thing a “little excursion.”
After a full career, I can attest that we soldiers know we’re expendable. And yet we still go where we’re sent. But there is an asterisk. There is just one thing that we ask. It’s that America spends our lives on something worth the sacrifice.
Would you be willing to die for a “little excursion”? Would you send your daughter or your son to die in one?
We often forget that foreign policy is just this personal. It begins and ends at home. It’s one kid willing to fight, to go wherever deployed. It’s one family willing to sacrifice. That’s the nucleus, the atomic unit of American foreign policy. Because armies don’t fight wars alone; societies do.