Nine Afghan boys killed by Apache
helicopters while collecting firewood.

Today we, our three grandchildren, my wife and I made a determined effort in an hour got a good start in cleaning up the backyard gardens for spring planting. Afterwards I felt healthy and clear minded. This afternoon we took the grandchildren to the I Max Theater to see big screen movie of the mysteries of Egypt. Since we had free passes for the museum the children decided they would like to check out the museum. I would have preferred going to the lakefront to fly kites but was in the minority. Afterwards I felt a little uptight, like I do after visiting a shopping mall where too much information and stimuli had overcome my brain. However, when we got home the boys and I went across the street to play golf on the par three course. Although I was tired I was invigorated by the activity. In short, after outside activities I felt great and after inside activities I felt tense.

By looking at my ups and downs in spirits in one day I can understand a little more what a soldier goes through in combat. Watching videos on the military channel shot by soldiers I can see how life is routine the next moment and then explodes with excitement. In one video I saw today soldiers were routinely flying over desert in Afghanistan in a helicopter and suddenly the see something. It was hard to know what they saw but they started to fire their machine guns randomly on the ground and shoot missiles. You can feel the air of excitement when they do this and sometimes the explosion on the ground is met with cheers. This exuberance at exploding a target was shown clearly in a video a soldier took while watching a 8000 lb bound drop on a building. The up moments in these many videos on when there is a lot of shooting, bombs exploring, most of it without seeing the victims face to face.

Watching this videos of the indiscriminate and random firing of weapons it was sadly easier to understand in the war an Afghanistan how nine young boys were killed by Apache helicopters as they were collecting firewood last March. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, who at that time heading the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, apologized for the mistake. Now he heads the CIA who under the direction of the White House runs a killer drone program. “Killer Drones” represent the anonymous shock and awe, random killing of modern warfare. On one end it is a routine operation and on the other a deadly event.

Yes gardening is a determined effort while killing is become more and more random

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