Plane crashes and civil wars

What a way to start the day.

Rolled out of bed this morning and flipped on the radio. What do I hear?

Plane crash in Lexington. All but one killed. The pilot apparently took off on the wrong runway.

Among the dead were a newlywed couple, friends of a friend, flying out of Lexington toward their honeymoon and a new life. He was a social worker, a former member of both the UK and Chicago White Sox baseball teams.

"I get lost in the sadness and the screams" --- John Denver.

Life is a precious commodity. All too soon it can be snatched away. Makes one think.

Watched a documentary on the battle of Gettysburg earlier this afternoon. What horror.

Pickett's Charge never fails to send chills streaming up my spine, much like the gallant men that streamed toward the stone wall on that long ago hot, muggy July afternoon.

Watching such carnage quickly evaporates any romanticism about that war.

Here in the early 21st Century, war continues to rage in Iraq. The dead return home week after week. And yet many of us go about our lives oblivious.

Perhaps William Tecumseh Sherman said it best. "War is all hell."