LCT,
A suggestion.....get your kids to watch "Saving Private Ryan"....the very first part of it.....before the shooting starts. Then, ask them what the real cost of War is.
Of all the war movies and discussion of the evils of war.....that opening sequence shatters me every time I see it. Remembering every single one of those crosses in the cemetery represent young Private Ryan.....the brothers that were killed Private Ryans....and in reality every single life lost due to War.
The other scene in that film that destroys me is the one where the Army Staff car turns into the Ryan Farm lane.....and Mother Ryan collapses on the front porch when she sees the Padre and Army Officer. She did not know which Son had been lost.....much less three of them....when she collapsed in grief. Multiply that by the thousands upon thousands of times that has happened in real life.
A Soldier's life can be a hard one.....but being a Soldier's Mother or Father has to be much harder especially for those that lose children to War.