I'm driving.
Jack, my co-pilot, sleeps in the passenger seat. His chin rests on my upper leg. The car in front of us wears two Support Our Troops ribbons. One is yellow; the other red, white and blue. Both are made in China. On the rear bumper is a faded black MIA sticker. That driver probably means well, but by now I've seen too many ribbons.
While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq kill and maim, I think of how they are also shaping the future. Many of these returning veterans will come home and go missing, and you won't even know it. Returning from a war is more than getting off an airplane and putting on civvies. Combat changes a person. It changed me.