Merry Christmas, Baby Colgan

I can’t tell you her name. All I can tell you is she has two loving sisters, Grace, age 2, and Paige, age 1, and a loving mother, Jill Colgan. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles will adore her, and she’ll have a lot of presents under the Christmas tree this year. One gift will be a set of nursery rhymes her father recorded before he left the country, and another will be a photo album.

It will be years before she understands the true concept of Christmas. It’s a season full of joy and remembrance. Hopefully she’ll do well in school and attend a good college. I’m sure she’ll make great friends and grow to be a responsible, loving person.

Benjamin Joseph Colgan of Kent, Wash., was my cousin. He died Nov. 1, 2003, in Iraq at age 30. Sometimes all of the special-forces training is just not enough. I attended his “Celebration of Life” on Nov. 29 and heard testimony about what a great person America lost.

America did lose a great person that day, but more important Jill, Grace, Paige and their sister lost much more. They lost their husband and dad. They lost a future together.

We lost many people at the World Trade Center. I mourn them all. As yet we have not taken action against Saudi Arabia, where 16 of the attackers came from. The greatest governmental forces in the world can find thousands of people a year with an ounce of marijuana, but as yet we haven’t found Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. We are unable to find the weapons of mass destruction, though we were assured we would after a Shock and Awe campaign in which thousands of Iraqi citizens were killed.

I am still waiting for allied forces to assist us in this war. Perhaps these countries are telling us something. Perhaps there was a better plan that our leaders would not listen to.

Perhaps war is good business for large American companies.

“Baby” Colgan will be born Dec. 16, 2003, and we all look forward to her being in our lives. Her immediate and extended family will have another part of Ben to love. Another reason for living.

My hope is that the killing is over. I hope we soon learn of a plan for peace, as we have never had an exit plan for this war.

If not, November 2004 can’t come soon enough.