When GWB announced the official beginning of war in Iraq, I was in college and working an evening shift at Susan's Coffee and Tea. I put on the radio loud enough for the whole place to hear the announcement, and was so angry that I went into the kitchen and cried. I took part in organized protests over the next few months.
Now, as I'm finally hearing about the "official end of combat operations" from President Obama, I am tiredly grading quizzes in my pajamas. I have a mortgage, a fiance, a master's degree, tenure, and life insurance. Yes these changes are completely trivial compared to how people's lives have been altered by war, but still, it shows how much TIME has passed.
And admittedly, it's easier to think of that than to think of how many lives have been lost and/or destroyed over the past seven and a half years.
