There's an article in yesterday's Statesman about the memorial service I attended Friday for Lt. Brian Smith, who was killed 2 weeks ago in Iraq. I only knew Brian in vignettes -- drinking beers at the Draught House (where he would try to out-Southern the rest of us) or his work on my will before my trip to Africa (as an unemployed lawyer waiting for Basic Training to start, he actually did 2 house calls and spent a lot of time in exchange for homebrew...). I saw him the last time he was in Austin before deploying to Iraq, and he regaled us with stories of his training experiences. This vignette based experience of Brian makes me feel a strong loss of potential -- this is someone who was *becoming* a friend.

Brian's untimely demise really brings the war in Iraq home to me -- although he is the only soldier in Iraq I know/knew personally, all of a sudden this has become my generation's war....

I find it appropriate that the first Austin area death in this war is one of an extremely unconvential, extremely intellectual individual.... Brian was a very typical Austinite in many ways -- science fiction fan, UT grad, member of the SCA, post-graduate degree, even worked in high tech....