Grief For Another Life Lost

Christopher Hitchens writes about a young soldier from Irvine, California--just a few miles down the 55 Freeway from me--who died in combat in Iraq earlier this year. In it, Hitchens recounts his grief about the young soldier's death after learning that one of Hitchens' articles helped persuade him to join the service.

I don't exaggerate by much when I say that I froze [after reading the news report about the soldier's death]. I certainly felt a very deep pang of cold dismay. I had just returned from a visit to Iraq with my own son (who is 23, as was young Mr. Daily) and had found myself in a deeply pessimistic frame of mind about the war. Was it possible that I had helped persuade someone I had never met to place himself in the path of an I.E.D.?

It's an interesting and, at times, moving article.