Brian Jones: “This Friday will be the 10th anniversary of our troops being committed to Afghanistan. This commitment by the previous…”

“This Friday will be the 10th anniversary of our troops being committed to Afghanistan. This commitment by the previous administration and Congress was justified because bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11. But now bin Laden is dead; al Qaeda is disbursed all around the world. Beside me is a poster of an honor guard carrying a flag-draped coffin off a plane at Dover Air Force Base. To accompany the photo, I will read into the Record an editorial from Bob Schieffer titled ``The Real Cost of War'': [I was in an airport lounge the other day when I saw a woman across the way. Why I kept staring, I don't know. Maybe it was just that she seemed so sad. And then I understood. And I looked away, hoping she had not seen me stare. Because in her lap was an American flag, neatly folded into a triangle and placed in a clear plastic case, a flag folded the way it always is when it is given to a soldier's family as the soldier's coffin is lowered into the grave. I figured her to be a soldier's mother, and I couldn't help but wonder what memories that flag evoked as she held it there.…”