I don't dwell on the Iraq War a lot, here on the blog or elsewhere in my life. I think for me as for most Americans who don't have a loved one fighting there daily, the war in Iraq is a distant thing. But at times I fix on little things. I have two small children, a four year old boy and a girl who is nearly two. They know nothing of this war, of course, but they haven't lived a day when it wasn't happening. Since they were born, my dad, an Air Force reservist, has done a brief tour in a field hospital in Northern Iraq.

For a variety of thoughtful pieces about the war, see the National Magazine Award-winning Virginia Quarterly's collection, including the stunning Art Born of the Need to Tell by Daniel Heyman.