Today, in Iraq, where nearly every dawn is lacerated by mounting carnage - local and foreign - American troops are hemorrhaging among the wounded and the dead, pawns in an unspeakable farce, for the United States of America is not at war.
Only 135,000 men and women in American uniform are fighting - volunteers, members of the National Guard, reservists. There is no draft. No threat of a uniform hangs over the citizens of a nation of nearly 300 million who, in polls, support the invasion of a remote country upon whom our government would pin guilt of 9/11 ... and then attack. An invasion that was ordered by an expertly trained but combat-innocent fighter pilot and a draft-deferred character with "other priorities" during the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, perhaps one crucial question was omitted from those polls: "Is any member of your family uniformed and in Baghdad?"
David Douglas Duncan, who served in the Marine Corps from 1943 to 1946 and who photographed the Korean and Vietnam Wars for Life magazine, is the author of "Photo Nomad."
It is a sin as a society that we grant the wealthy tax breaks while we send the poor to war.
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