This picture shows Marine Lieutenant Colonel presenting a folded American flag to eight-year-old Christian Golczynski at the funeral for his father, Staff Sergeant Marcus Golczynski.  Staff Sergeant Golczynski was killed on March 27 in Iraq.  This incredibly moving photo has been widely circulated around the internet and on national newscasts.

The lieutenant colonel in the photo, taken by Aaron Thompson of Gannett, Tennessee, is Ric Thompson.  He was my roommate in Iraq.

There are bonds created with those who stand by your side in a combat zone.  Perhaps they alone understand.

I've witnessed their bravery.  I still stand in awe of them for all they so willingly sacrifice.  How can I not love them? 

And that's what makes it hard when one is lost.  So it goes with the death of Staff Sergeant Golczynski.  So it went with the passing of Lance Corporal Brent Zoucha a year ago.  So it goes with the loss of each during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Experiencing a war first-hand accelerates the understanding that war is "man's greatest stupidity."

Yet wars occur because there is evil in the world, and we, with our fallibility and finite wisdom, choose war when we see it as the last or the best option when an aggressor sets the price for their version of peace too high.

We then, inevitably, find ourselves grappling with the deaths of those who commit themselves to standing between us and the barbarians.  But we also, as General George Patton pointed out, "Thank God that such men lived."

I understand how high terrorists have set the price for peace.  That is why, even when grieving and wrestling with the losses, I advocate for the victory of our nation against them.

In advocating, I have been labeled a number of ways, including being "pro-war."  I'll take the name calling.  I'm a big boy.  I'm a Marine; I've had worse.

Personally, I'd prefer that no wars ever happened.  In so many ways, I'm "anti-war" because I understand the costs.  But I'm not naive.  I've seen enough of the world to know that the barbarians do exist and they exact a price for their ideology.  To believe otherwise, and fail to concede that use of force has to be an option, crosses a threshold from being "anti-war" to foolish.

If wanting your country to win against an enemy who has sworn to destoy our nation, and acknowledging that it will take a certain level of violence and sacrifice to prevent the enemy from reaching that goal makes me pro-war, then yes, I'm pro-war.

But if the pro-war label insinuates an absence of understanding the costs of war, particularly in terms of the lives of our nation's warriors, then we have a problem.  I know the sacrifice of men like Staff Sergeant Golczynski.  And until you've walked in my desert dust covered boots, you can't tell me how to feel about the photo of my friend presenting the flag to the staff sergeant's son.