Elizabeth Edwards: Courage and Peace and Mercy

From Elizabeth Edwards, who is on her way to become the first Lady, Spouse, and Mom, as well as for Justice:

In between the screams of horror, somewhere lost in the outrage, there is a small, sad voice. The horror of the moments today will fade, will become -- as too many moments before it have become -- but a dark shadow on our national soul. The outrage will dissipate as a new insult to humanity erupts -- as we know too well it will. But the small, sad voice will stay with us, should stay with us, must stay with us.

The voice of parents and brothers and sisters, of grandparents and fiances, of lovers and friends and roommates. The voices of those who lay beside them, of those who carried them from Norris or West A.J., of those who tried to heal and those who prayed for life. We need to keep that voice alive, the voice that first and last reminds us of the promise of the lives that were lost today.

I remember writing after the death of the 1000th American in Iraq -- and there were 40 more names released this week who died in Iraq and Afghanistan bringing the total to over 3300 -- that it wasn't one thousand but a thousand ones, each with a family, each with corsages or boutonnieres pressed between the pages of a book, each with dreams and plans. And so it is again with at least thirty-two young people of promise. At least thirty-two ones, each a treasure, each a joy, each a story to learn and repeat, so that the madness that took their breath will not also steal their stories.

We don't know the stories yet, but surely we will. And we don't know why, and likely we will never really know and certainly we will never truly understand. But for each of them, we have to try, we have to learn why this tragedy repeats itself here, in this country of the greatest possibilities, a country built on the right to pursue happiness. Why here? We have to figure this out. And then we have to get about the business of fixing it.

For them, and for us all.


Amen, EE.