  Nearly every night as John and I watch the urlLink Jim Lehrer News Hour , we watch in dread as they parade in silence the faces of the most recently fallen American young men and women in Iraq. We've said, and we know, that one night soon, someone we know will show up there. urlLink The Washington Post has a new way to show the faces of the dead, the multimedia advance in bereavement, if you will.
It makes my stomach upset. What are kids to do when high school ends? One of the few institutions our society offers is low-cost professional education in the form of community college or junior college, but the reason this remains possible for some is that these schools are in their hometown, where they can live with their parents and apply their day-job money that would otherwise go to housing to college instead. In the rural, small town from which I came, there was no such option. Because anyone who went to college would also have to pay full living expenses, and because the absence of a college at home necessitated leaving the family, maybe 12 of my graduating class of about 100 completed more than a year of college.
Of the remainders, the women scattered to marry themselves off to men with jobs, some found wage work of their own. Some joined the majority of the men, who joined either active or reserve service in an effort to gain the honor and dignity college and a career otherwise offered.
This was the class of 1995. John's was the class of 1994. Between the two of us, we're certain we know hundreds in service. We hurt for them, for their lives in danger and for their families at home worrying about their lives in danger. And we keep in mind that for every one American death we see covered in the news, tens and hundreds of Iraqis died for our version of freedom that day, as well. Their families cry tonight with salt tears, just as the American families are. For centuries of human history, if a woman needed money to survive, she could sell her body, put her life at risk and get some quick cash with little skills required.
The same option has existed for men, in the form of military service. What kind of country is this that still offers no choices for young people looking for a little clout in life aside from selling themselves? A finger on a trigger, a chest in a bullet-proof jacket, or open legs on a bed: they're all sad representations of our national identity. We're killing our young men and women. And for what? They're my friends! My classmates! They shouldn't be dying. 
