Suicide vs. Service

One TV Actor Completed Suicide by Heroin/Alcohol – Headline News.

158 Canadian Soldiers Killed Serving their Country – Nobody Cares

There is something terribly wrong with the two statements above; primarily, that a mediocre TV actor who chooses suicide by a lethal combination of alcohol and heroin should garner more attention and publicity than the Canadian soldiers who have been killed on active duty in Afghanistan. Flowers from strangers line the outer wall of the hotel where the suicide took place. A candlelight vigil for the recently departed is being planned as I write this.

What is wrong with the world?

 This actor CHOSE to die by his own hand; he completed the last task he CHOSE to undertake, yet the throngs are crying because he completed what he intended to do?

Have we become so blasé to the eleven-year ground war in the Middle-East that one more or less soldier giving his/her life to fight against a governance system that is fundamentally against human rights, is just another day in the life?

Yes, war is a terrible thing, and young men and women should not have to go to foreign lands with the possibility of being killed on the job. However, until the concept of armed conflict is a distant human memory, nations will continue to send their brightest and best to do a job that nobody wants to do, while taking every precaution to ensure they come home safely.

Until then we need to take more than two minutes of silence at the 11^th hour on the 11^th day of the 11^th month to remember the children we are sending to die in a war.