We ought know the frail tether that ties a soldier to the home-front, a tether frayed and torn by all that they’re eyes see, all that they’re hands do, and all that they’re hearts miss. Sometimes the line is cut, and sometimes it just falls away.

There can be no protracted debate, no public recitation of the merits of both sides on this issue allowing for heartless posturing and hurtful rhetoric. This White House must reverse a long tenured policy that denies a Presidential letter to the families of those soldiers who have taken their own lives, propelled to that action by the scourges of war.

Sometimes when all else feels stripped away, a simple act of recognition, an act of gratitude helps restore a small piece, a happy memory that helps push back the tides of despair just long enough to catch ones breath. And though these deaths may not meet the definition of combat fatality they are losses all the same and should be mourned and respected in much the same manner, anything less ignores a soldiers due.

Another election has come and gone and what has it given us? What have we retained other then a slain forests worth of cardboard signs left sticking up out of the ground like gravestones never to be visited or removed? Why we don’t even have the excitement and mystery of election night to thrill us anymore, gone the way of the dodo, killed off by polls and analysis that pinpoint exactly who will win and exactly how they will win days or weeks before we bother to vote. Anticipation and patience, suffering the fate of other once simple riches like subtlety and reflective thought, crushed by the violent bore of technology.

Why exactly do we do it? Is it the rush of “say”? Our slight bit of power over this mammoth machine that consumes and bewilders us all. Or are we so frail, so vulnerable, so innocent as to still believe? To still hope with abandon that a word can be said and it can be a true map, a direction to a better day that supersedes the hollow delight of rhetoric and actually fulfills a promise? I know that deep below an ocean of doubt and cynicism lies a single glimmer of hope buried within me, a glimmer that cannot be extinguished no matter how hard society tries. This hope propels me toward all manner of foolishness. It propels me towards impetuousness. Toward love. Toward the feeling that no matter the trial, triumph is surely not far off. And it propels me towards a belief of heaven and a fear of hell, an open question with regards to the sky, and all manner of idealism. If this little untamed glimmer is my voice, then democracy is my song. And for all its flaws, all of its useless parts, it is far better then the frozen hell of silence.

So while I, while we may grieve the inevitable disappointment and ready the remedies for our coming wounds and struggles under the thumb of those that fall short of their promise, let not our sadness kill the hope for joy. Let not our glimmer relent for on the darkest day it is the light that leads us back home.