She sat across my desk, smiling and focused on the job at hand, which was discussing a newspaper insert she wanted printed for the organization that employs her. Our conversation, however, strayed into a more personal arena.

This was Sept. 9, a Friday, and her husband was to be shipped off to Iraq within the next couple of weeks. She seemed worried yet somehow detached about the ordeal she’s dealing with. He’s National Guard, and he’ll leave behind his wife and a teen-age daughter to go overseas and serve in the war that was to provide the catalyst for a chain reaction of democracy throughout the Middle East.

But that hasn’t happened. Instead, we disarmed a virtually defenseless Iraq, rolled into Baghdad just about unscathed, and more than two years later are still struggling to protect even one small part of the country from terrorists. We haven’t grown Iraq into a garden of democracy, but have helped shape a seething land of sectarian divisions with no clear plan for success or departure. Our expectations are lowering, yet we continue to send soldiers and resources.

When the woman left my office, my thoughts turned to how this Sept. 11 would be observed, to how long this war would go on. I still believe that the most horrendous lie of this administration, one that will remain in the history books, is how it convinced the majority of Americans that there was a link between the atrocities of Sept. 11 and the evils of the Saddam Hussein regime. From the president on down to minor administration officials, they argued that there was a connection. It was a myth that still haunts us today, a justification for war that, by that measure, was entirely unjustified.

My own daughter is 13 years old. According to dictates of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, all schools must give personal student information to the military — unless the student personally opts out. When the form comes around, she’ll probably, eager student that she is, fill it out. I don’t even know if parents get the opportunity to sign it or if all of this just takes place in the school. According to one study, only 13,000 students out of the millions in public schools have asked that their information not be forwarded to the military. If this war lingers, though, I don’t want recruiters sending my children anything.

But Iraq is suddenly stricken from the front page by the awful disaster on our Gulf Coast. Now we have the devastation of Katrina dominating every media, dramatic stories of death, rescue and families torn apart. Still to come is the most gruesome part of that disaster — the dead bodies, bloated and decaying, are floating around New Orleans. No one knows how high that count will reach. We have to collect them, figure out who they are, and then families will have to deal with their personal tragedies.

I’ve never been a pacifist, but it’s times like these when war suddenly seems trifling. Especially this kind of war, one in which the goal is to gain a strategic advantage, to export support for America through the use of force and the loss of lives in a land where hatred of our heavy-handed tactics continues to grow. Juxtaposed against Katrina’s wrath, it’s easy to argue that America’s strength should be focused on her own problems. Now is when we want the National Guard, men like these in Western North Carolina who are serving in Iraq, to be home, patrolling this new zone of disaster, helping our people.

But they aren’t here. For those of us in the South, this point is particularly meaningful. It’s our brothers and sisters who have been put in harm’s way. My own father, born in rural South Carolina, enlisted while still in his teens and stayed in the military 24 years. My brother, 18 and with a child on the way, served four years in the Navy and even now works as a mechanic for the civil service, fixing the planes and helicopters that are part of our arsenal.

A recently released report by the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham showed that 35 percent of the nation’s active-duty military personnel came from 13 Southern states. Of the troops that have died in Iraq, 38 percent were from the South; in Afghanistan, 47 percent of the dead were from the South.

“This report drives home what most Southerners already know,” says report co-author Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute. “Almost everybody in the South knows someone in the service, who works at a base, or is otherwise connected to the military. That has a big impact on how Southerners view the military and foreign policy.”

Right now about 60 percent of people in this country think the administration is not handling the war very well. Support runs higher in the South, among those of us who know people who have fought. From these veterans we hear of schools opening, of children befriending soldiers, of peace and order coming to many neighborhoods and communities. Our soldiers are doing plenty of good, but that begs the question — are we winning, and should we be there in the first place?

Truth be told, that 60 percent of Americans who are against the war is not an overwhelming percentage, despite what has been a violent and deadly August. At this time the death toll in Iraq stands at 1,896. That’s a seemingly small number, but some other figures from this war, perhaps, are more telling about the carnage that is occurring. The estimated death toll among Iraqi civilians ranges anywhere from 6,000 to 27,000, depending on where one looks for information and whom one believes. Another 15,000 American soldiers have been wounded, and these people will carry the memories of this war for their entire lives.

When Sept. 11 came this past Sunday, there was not a lot of attention paid to it. When I finally spent a few minutes this anniversary, I found myself convinced that this escapade in Iraq is not working. We aren’t winning, and I’m beginning to fear for the generation of children growing up alongside my daughter. They may be among those taking up arms and shipping off to the desert. And as it drags on, the baggage — moral and economic — continues to weigh on our national health.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)