The cost of war is too high when the coin of the realm is children's lives!

Standing in front of this 8-year-old boy lying in a hospital bed, the "conflict in the Middle East" and the "cost of war" seem endless and suffocating. His pain cannot possibly be imagined as he shakes uncontrollably in and out of shock. He has blood coming from his eyes.

His name is Mahmood Monsoor and he is horribly burned. In the hospital bed next to him is his 8-month-old sister, Maria -- also burned. Screaming at the top of her lungs is the children's mother, Nuhader Monsoor. She is standing over her baby, looking at her son -- and probably thinking of her dead husband. The smell of burned flesh is overwhelming.

Maybe I am not manly enough to look at these babies and believe that they are just the necessary collateral damage of war. Perhaps I am too weak to resist the flood of emotion that I feel when I see innocent people hurt or killed.

If this is what it is to be man, then I guess I am happy being whatever it is that I am.