"school is hell," as general patton once said, or maybe i got that a little wrong, and it was about war, and i should remember that since today is veteran's day. i took my kid to school one day and said, "another day," and she said, "another day of hell," which got me thinking, it's not easy for a kid who gets teased a lot and who struggles to maintain. but it's easier in school than in war.

i got a book to read about afghanistan so am spending veteran's day reading a guy's stories about all the crazy stuff that happens way over there where nobody's watching. i shouldn't put down what they do or minimize it. war in all aspects has always been about the lowest point of human existence - we are apparently the only animal besides ants that sends large numbers of ourselves into organized wars against other large numbers of us. over in ukraine basically both sides are digging in and the result will be a depleted population on both sides to the point that there will be little left to defend the significant territory that both cover. someone will have to go in and clean the mess - restore farmlands, restore power and infrastructure, make it so towns have water, that kind of thing. it will take years and it will be a wasteland in the meantime. and every russian and ukrainian family with young people aged 16-15 will have trauma in their midst.

meanwhile i sit back here in my chair noticing that the last three of our children, all adopted, are having much more of a problem with school than any of the others. they simply are on the outside of life with all its expectations, all having conditions that make it difficult to keep up with them. whereas most people find that if they key on certain skills and abilities, they'll be able to do what the teacher wants, no problem, keep the adults happy, let them focus on what they care about the most, relations with the other kids. with our kids it's a little overwhelming to try to keep up with the rain of assignments and expectations that come down, and they soon have to choose between social life and passing. well you can guess which is winning most of the time.

it's not like there's a threat of death or being blown up or being overrun by enemy mortar fire or that kind of thing. it's a much slower, more painful kind of death, death of hope, death of any real chance for success.

happy veteran's day, everyone. thank you for your service.