I look back at the first full week of the war with Iran through the face of one Marine and the questions that never leave me: what do we owe the young men and women we send into harm’s way, and what obligation does leadership have to give them a clear mission? “Hey y’all, welcome back to Unfit to Print.” “There will be no newsletter on Thursday this week as I’m headed to Florida to teach some young people about journalism, but stay tuned for video monologues on Substack and YouTube.” “Today, a reflection on the first full week of the war with Iran.” “FOG OF WAR”
Charles Cartwright was a name pinned to a classroom wall long after he left our small Maryland town, and that image stayed with people who watched their kids grow up beside him. He graduated high school in 2001, just before September changed everything, and like so many in his generation he answered the call in the months that followed. His story is not exotic or distant; it is the quiet, hard kind of sacrifice that shows up in neighborhoods across America.
Cartwright’s record reads like a list of service and risk: multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, fight after fight, always forward when danger appeared. On his final deployment he and his unit were pinned down and he was shot, yet he put himself back in the line of fire to help a severely wounded Afghan who had been aiding their team. That choice — to protect others and delay his own treatment until the threat was gone — is the sort of instinct that military families can recite without drama, because it is simply what some of our sons and daughters do.
He died at 26, leaving behind a young wife and a stack of posthumous honors: a Silver Star, Purple Hearts and other decorations that try to translate courage into metal. Those medals matter because they are how institutions remember valor, but the human cost cannot be captured by ribbons. When I think of Cartwright I am thinking of a person who lived and died for a mission that was shaped by leaders far from the firefight.
We are now watching another conflict unfold and the fog of war is thick, as it always is. From a Republican perspective the response to that fog should be twofold: first, absolute, unwavering support for the troops on the ground; second, relentless demand for a clear strategy from our commanders and elected officials. Supporting our military is not just cheering on the parade; it is making sure every young person sent overseas understands the objective and has the resources to succeed and come home.
Covering this war as a journalist, five years older than Cartwright was when he died, I keep returning to the same hard questions: Are our goals defined? Do we have an exit strategy that honors lives spent on the line? Do commanders and civilian leaders understand the burdens they ask of citizens who volunteer to fight? These are not academic queries — they are accountability measures that determine whether sacrifice leads to a durable outcome or simply more funerals.
There is also a moral duty at home: we must care for the families left behind and insist our policy decisions reflect the weight of those personal losses. Bargaining chips and abstract geopolitical gains mean very little to a spouse or a parent who receives the news no one wanted. Republicans should insist on fiscal and logistical support for veterans, robust medical and mental health services, and policies that never forget the people behind the flag.
Remembrance without reform is cheap. Honoring sailors, soldiers and Marines like Cartwright requires a national conversation that is honest about the aims of war and tough on political leadership when it fails to answer why young Americans are asked to fight. I can’t change the past, but I can refuse the complacency that allows foggy objectives to become the norm. In the end, the best tribute we can pay to those who gave everything is to demand clarity, responsibility and full support for the living.
