(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) (commentary purposes only)

When I was a chaplain at the Presidio of San Francisco, I often performed services for vets. The two hundred thirty year old cemetery had been closed for lack of room for full body burials but then decided to allow cremations. I performed the very first one.

To Those Who Gave The Last Full Measure Of Devotion-Abe Lincoln

The saddest services were often those with no one in attendance but me, and the military: honor guard, and the bugler. Most were WW ll vets whose families lived far away.

On more than one occasion, a service was for an indigent, homeless vet whose life had taken a wrong turn. What brought them to that point, I did not know.

Probably any safety-net they'd ever had, i. e., family, friends, adinfinitum, was gone. They'd been given too many chances by the families; and, for whatever reasons, the wrong turn became more the rule than the exception. Here they were-all alone.

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)"

The Northeast part of the San Francisco National Cemetery occupied a developer's dream overlooking the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.

The ceremony this particular day was a very sad one.

The son of an active duty Colonel was killed in an auto accident. The only child.

I was reminded of what my wonderful seminary professor, Dr. W. W. Boyce, would constantly say to us about grief: "Sometimes there is a sadness which is so great that you simply don't know what to say."

I feel this about Iraq on Memorial Day. I just hope my sadness is shared by most in our nation. I doubt it. Four thousand plus Americans dead is heart-wrenching. I've done my own little unscientific survey and have come to believe that most hardly rememeber there's a war going on.

Forty years ago this week in Nam, the future Commandant of Marine Corps and I (the only officers left in the company) were leading a company of Grunts up to the ridge tops, overlooking Khe sahn,110 strong. Only 50 would walk off- R. Dito, VietVet and Proud Marine

What I always think of when I think of young soldiers who died is that they never got a chance to live out their lives. We could say that of any youngster dying, obviously, but war is especially heinous I think. An immeasurable cost of war that is the lossof human life. jhl