I guess I'm coming in late with my opinion on this, but it was only yesterday that I found this link to a blog post contending that the Memorial Mile, a quiet protest expressing the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the starkest terms, didn't have the impact that the Madison Veterans For Peace had intended.

Kris, who wrote the post, looked at the Memorial Mile, and especially the shorter section of tombstones representing deaths in 2007 and 2008, and said, "I'm not thinking about the human cost of war, I'm thinking ... Wow, things look like they're going much better."

And I look at the Memorial Mile and think, Well, no, things aren't going much better at all for the soldiers represented by these tombstones. Things couldn't get much worse. Maybe that's my flaw, I don't know, but so long as the Veterans For Peace have to add to the number of tombstones, things aren't getting better.