As the war in Iraq drags on and more of our troops are killed and wounded or faced with the challenges of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the politics of the war are becoming an ever present part of our daily lives. Ant-war activists are becoming louder and it is becoming almost impossible to engage in thoughtful debate on the war. Instead of being able calmly discuss the decision behind the war, the current strategy, the possibility for victory, the only debate we hear on the war had been reduced to slogans and sound bites created to grab our attention and focus the camera on their side of the public relations fight.

But what activists and pundits on both sides of the war debate are starting to forget is that their words are being heard by our troops and their families. In this age of satellite, internet and worldwide journalism, our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are not immune to the acrimonious war of words going on back here at home. Their families, the wives, husbands, children and parents of our service members are spending every day waiting and praying and worrying and listening to the thoughtless and outrageous slogans being tossed back and forth so easily by those who see only the big picture of the war, and do not think about the individual men and women fighting the war.

It has become too easy for us to become wrapped up in debating the merits of the war and to forget that every war must always come down to the men and women carrying the weapons. In an effort to sway the public to their side of the war, both sides of the debate are growing more and more forceful and, at times, inconsiderate in their choice of words. Almost nightly we hear an anti-war activist saying that we must pull out of Iraq before anymore American lives are “wasted.” Now that phrase may succeed in garnering attention for the activist’s point of view, it may draw attention to the over 3,000 lives lost so far, but it does nothing to support our troops. The activist may not think twice about using the word “wasted” but that word will reverberate in the hearts and minds of the troops still serving in Iraq, the men and women who have seen their friends dies to defend this nation. And that word “wasted” will strike at the heart of a widow who has just buried her husband or a father who is mourning his daughter.

Debate on the war is a good and necessary thing. We should debate why we are in Iraq, whether we can win and how best to secure the country and equip its people to defend themselves against the forces of evil that are waiting to overtake them. But debate should not be a war of sound bites and video clips and it should never come at the expense of those who are still fighting for this country.