There are better days ahead... right?

Ordinarily, I try to stay positive on this blog. I try to keep it light and funny, even quirky. But this morning I read an article on the St. Pete Times website about a woman who just found out her fiance was killed in Baghdad, and it crushed me.

He was due to come home this Friday on leave. He was going to be surprising her with a Bahama cruise, on which they would be getting married.

Here's a link to the article:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/article441186.ece

To say she is devestated would be an understatement. Her life will never be the same. For the next few days, weeks, months, even years, she will be haunted by the possibilities of what might have been, what should have been, and what will never be. I ask myself, how will she bounce back from this? How will/can she move on with her life? If I were in her shoes, what would I do? What could I do?

If I thought for one minute that his death had some purpose, then I suppose I could make sense out of such a tragedy. If I believed that all the work being done in Iraq would eventually be proven worthwhile, and that the US really did have a master plan that would benefit the Iraqi people, then this story wouldn't have hit me so hard. If I could just believe, even for one minute, that the military really did have control over the situation, that their goals, any goals, have been met, I might feel better.

But the truth is, I don't believe anything good is going to come out of Iraq. I don't believe there's anything positive about our invasion of that country. And it makes me sick to my stomach to think that the 4,000+ American deaths and tens of thousands Iraqi deaths were all for nothing.

Iraq is turning out to be our generation's Vietnam, and I see no end in sight. And I don't know whether I feel angry or depressed. Maybe I just feel numb.

Please tell me there are better days ahead.