Appreciate your response Russell Carr - while t is undoubtedly true that the passing of someone we know, in som capacity is bund to affect us in a way that starngers' deaths do not, peolple in your position who have survived and with th luxury of time and energy to write , are morally obliged to be a nice to some degree also, for all those unjustly slaughtered. Americans had more agency and more choice about whether to be in Iraq. A 5 year old would know that if the up the road, from their home to attack someone, they are the aggressor.

So a word of sorrow for the slaughter you were part of , would not go amiss. Especially in the present damn context where the USA - your country is yet again, enabling the slaughter of innocents.