IRAQ WAR VET CHECKS OUT

The heartbreaking reality of this war.

The most fortunate of these survivors find one another. Doug had recently joined IVAW, where our veterans not only establish mutual support networks of plain love and care with one another, but where they can engage in the most "therapeutic" activity of all -- fighting back against the criminality that sent them there in the first place. We arrived too late for Doug. We were going to met him in Birmingham later this month to involve him in the planning for a veteran-led march from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, and serve as the conscience of a nation that will spend trillions to drop bombs on Iraqis, and use a hurricane in the Black Belt as a pretext to accelerate gentification.

So when we launch out of Mobile in March on this 135-mile trek, we will carry Douglas Barber with us.

As an aside, I like that last phrase, "use a hurricane in the Black Belt as a pretext to accelerate gentification."

Tags: Iraq war veteran, post traumatic stress