If he was still here, I'd thank my dad again today for faithfully charging into battle at such a tender age, as I thank all the young men and women who have followed suit. But I wish, with all my heart that as a nation and a species, we could find a way to render the sacrifice unnecessary. My sons' country has been at war for more than half their lives, no end in sight, no obvious victory or relief. 

As I struggled to find my voice, my own grown son offered wise advice: "Sometimes we white people need to just shut up and listen," he cautioned. Not to say that we understand the pain of Black America, because we never can; not to assume one group is right and all others wrong or that, in fact, there exists one truth and one truth only; not to assume that solutions, if they are to be found and we have the courage, will be any simpler than the problems' deep, embedded roots; not to forget that to make it right, some of us must acknowledge and then relinquish our privilege and our power, if a more just nation is really what we want.