I cried my eyes out last night. I sobbed till my eyes were swollen and I felt exhausted by grief after watching “Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery” on HBO. I didn’t need to torture myself by watching this documentary about the burial ground for U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan but I felt compelled to do so. I feel so impotent in my ability to stop this madness that I take every opportunity to focus on this tragedy in small ways to stay connected to the grief and pain felt by the families of our soldiers wounded or killed in these wars.

Somehow it all circles back to that photo that I first saw in the NY Times. John Moore captured a haunting image in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. The photo ran on Memorial Day and it shows Mary McHugh, lying face down on the grave of her fiancé, Sgt. James J. Regan, killed in Iraq in February. The grief and pain just roll off that photo which I keep near my desk and look at every day.

According to HBO, Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery is called, “the saddest acre in America.” The HBO documentary is so tastefully done that you are pulled into the story immediately. The film makers Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill filmed at the site nearly every day for months. They capture the raw emotion still felt by those left behind, sometimes years after their loved one has died. The tenderness with which they touch and stroke the stark, white marble headstone as if it were alive was visceral to me. I was touched by the rituals undertaken by each person in maintaining the grave site, arranging flowers, balloons and other mementos and leaving behind stones atop the grave markers as a sign that the grave had been visited. Small children who never met the father, who lies beneath the earth, play among the headstones, thankfully oblivious to the grief of their adult chaperones.

My grandmother used to take me to the cemetery and tell me stories about those relatives and friends buried there. I understood her need to connect with the past and her commitment to preserving the memory of those folks who had beaten her to heaven. The immediate connection that strangers felt with each other in Section 60 was very touching. They comforted each other in their grief, in that place.

This has to stop. We must make the killing stop. I can’t bear to think of one more mother, father, sister, brother, daughter or son suffering the loss of their beloved. One young widow spoke of the pain she felt when folks spewed out their hatred towards President Bush and the war. I understood for the first time how that must pain the families of the dead soldiers. The families want to believe their loved one died for something bigger than themselves. Serving their country with honor of course but also the cause of this war, which I fear has been forgotten or never clearly established. The Iraq war truly seems like a war without end. There are no clearly definable or achievable goals at this point, the fighting and occupation of Iraq just go on endlessly while the American public does its level best to pretend it’s not happening.

Please, make it stop. Bring us leadership to chart the path out of Iraq and the plan to defeat the Taliban once and for all in Afghanistan. Please, don’t let one more man or woman serving the United States die in vain in a war without end.