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Andrew Olmsted

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

I didn’t know the guy. And I didn’t read him regularly. But this account of his funeral service made me cry.

War sucks.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 9:39 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “Andrew Olmsted”

  1. #1 |  Billy Beck |  January 20th, 2008 at 10:19 am

    That’s right, Radley, it does. But it’s not the worst thing in the world. A lot worse is facing the moral imperative to fight and not doing it.

  2. #2 |  Radley Balko |  January 20th, 2008 at 10:27 am

    And you’re suggesting the war in Iraq was a “moral imperative?”

    Don’t want to get into a debate over the war, here.

    I’m just not sure about the implication in your comment.

  3. #3 |  Michael |  January 20th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    The way I see it, the only moral imperiative would be to engage in a Christian-Muslim war! We can’t win this thing, as Huckabe wants to! And, I don’t think anyone wants to be there 100 years like McCain (won yesterday!) says. So who is really caring about the dam- war anyway! It does not show in the votes, so far!

  4. #4 |  Gary Farber |  January 20th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    Olmsted, Radley. Not “Olmstead.”

    Olmsted. Not “Olmstead.”

    If that made you cry, click on the video link at that page.

    The full list of links is is here, incidentally.

  5. #5 |  Gary Farber |  January 20th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Sorry, didn’t mean to repeat: accidentally didn’t cut the second line.

  6. #6 |  Jim Henley |  January 20th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    It’s a good link, but there’s no “A” in Olmsted.

  7. #7 |  CK |  January 20th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

    If you wish, you can read Maj. Olmsteds full final blog post here:
    http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

  8. #8 |  martin |  January 20th, 2008 at 8:37 pm

    So I read Radley’s post and follow the link.
    A very moving account, obviously meant to lead people to reflect and contemplate. So I read on, scrolling down slowly and this unshaven face appears, penetrating eyes staring. “Boulder County looking for sex offenders”.
    My contemplative mood abruptly deflates.
    Doesn’t anybody at the Rocky Mountain News actually look at what they’re presenting on their Web pages? Or did they and nothing seemed amiss?
    Aw, I guess I’m just so old-fashioned. If an extremely somber event like JF Kennedy’s funeral were taking place in 2008, I wouldn’t be surprised if some station broke for “a word from our sponsors” and inserted a quick hemorrhoid cream spot.
    O tempora, o mores.

  9. #9 |  Billy Beck |  January 21st, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    I say that the destruction of Saddam was a moral imperative, Radley. This is different from “the war in Iraq”, as it’s gone from the beginning.

    The largest implication of my remark however, is that “war sucks” is essentially childish. Everybody knows it. What *not* everyone thinks about, however, is the costs of peace at any cost.

    “War sucks” is far, far too simple. It’s not even worth typing.

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