I’ve written a number of times about CPT Jeff Leonard, the California National Guard therapist who has served in Iraq, talking down men who’ve been stressed out by urban combat. In his most recent blog entry he tells us this is his last as he waits out the last month before returning home to his family.

I have been meaning to write a letter to you all. As many of you may know, and many others may have figured out on their own, I am not sending in any more blog entries. The last entry posted was the 50th over the approximately six month period the project was actively underway. Somewhere around entry number 40 I decided that 50 would be it. As it stands now, I have about two more months to go in Iraq, with about one more month after that before I am actually released home. June marked a year for my unit since we left our homes, although I came a few weeks after most of them. Nonetheless, it has been a long year.

CPT Leonard has been very generous in his writings; we’ve learned a great deal about his humanity as he reassured soldiers that it’s normal to be frightened or resentful and that a soldier’s duty is to conquer these emotions and drive on. The man who knows his fears and learns to cope with them is much stronger than the fool who has no sense of fear. Fear in the moment of danger is normal. Fear outside of danger is caused by imagination – that which sets us apart from other animals, and is debilitating, sapping the spirit and heart. During his deployment CPT Leonard dealt with other men’s fears, and towards the end of his tour learned of his own fear and was strong enough to admit it. If you haven't visited his blog, this may be your last chance. Block out an hour's time and visit his page in the Fresno Bee before it is closed down.

They say that only something like one or two percent of American citizens will actually ever fight in a war for our country. I have seen who fights these wars for us. I have yet to meet any rich men's sons. Where are the children of our leaders here? I don't know. Perhaps this is how it has always been, and perhaps, how it always will be.

The Army is an industry of opportunity for those who perceive or have little or none in the places where they are from. True, many do join for god and country, but most join for a way to advance themselves in the world or to pay for college, to be able to buy that new car with their reenlistment bonus, provide housing and health insurance for their families, or to pay off their credit cards. I know countless people who in fact have benefited from the financial and educational programs of the Army. I am one of them. But for most of those who are born into lives of greater wealth, and greater options, these lures hold little if any temptation. Perhaps this is the way it will always be.

As for me, and my children, I will take every measure possible to ensure they perceive other options. I told my wife that I wanted to take down or cover up any photograph of myself in uniform on the walls of our home. This shocked her but when I shared that thought with Major Johns, the psychiatrist on my team, he said that was his plan for his son too. I am not ashamed. I simply do not wish to glamorize these things to my children. These are just the things that go through my mind as I take cover from incoming rounds on the floor of my tent. "I would never want this for my son."

The glamour of war exists only for those who have never experienced it. Heroic images of soldiers wrapped in the flag, valiantly facing the enemy’s last charge, are pap for civilian consumption. War is a dirty, filthy, brutal business, and those who glorify it without having gotten down into the muck and smelled the fear-sweat and the blood and the shit are lying scumwads who deserve to reside for all eternity in the ninth circle of hell, if there is one.

But few serving today can deny the economic disparities in backgrounds that exist between the greater majority of the heroic one or two percent and those same age peers who are not here. May my children never be a part of it. Be that right or wrong.

So mote it be.