No way to go to war

Tom Tomorrow offers a view of soldiers going to war in Iraq and hoping against hope that it will be for a good cause. It included this grim glimpse:

I thought of that tattoo as I glanced at him. It was buried beneath his BDU top now, but it stuck in my head. A lot of guys in the Army have tattoos around the same area-but a few inches higher, and in a much different design. Soldiers call them meat tags. A meat tag is a copy of the Army dog tag you wear around you neck, tattooed on your torso, just below your armpit. A meat tag isn’t just a hard-core status symbol. It’s a way to identify a body if the torso is all that remains after it’s blown apart. Name, social security number and religious preference (if any). Call it thinking ahead. Prep for combat. Another safety measure, like an extra pair of socks.

Yeow! And we send them back for tour after tour . . .

Update: and then, of course, there's this. We prefer not to think about who's doing the dying. (via boing boing)