Serious partial read below:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Army Spc. Gerald Lee Meeks says all he wanted in Iraq was to "keep everybody alive, all my buddies."

That hope was shattered last month when a roadside bomb blew up one of his best friends, and Meeks had to carry his slain buddy more than a mile back to base.

"I didn't want to believe it until I actually had to carry his body bag, which was pretty bad," he says, making a fist with his left hand and smashing it against a wall. "We had to carry him two clicks [kilometers] all the way back here."


*you dont need to read anymore to see that what is going on there and Afghanistan, the Phillipeans, the Gaza....it's just sad. someone's kid, someone's dad, someone's best friend.....doesnt really matter the politics, people are dying and there doesnt seem in any of these cases like there is a happy ending in sight. the reasons that the bad guys are bad (believe it or not its from poverty, oppression and hopelessness...why else does someone think that their earthly life is so crappy that they sacrifice it for a dream of martydom) are sad. what we have to do to stop them from doing more bad things, is sad.

Sorry for the downer moment.

You do have to wonder where it will all end.