The nine o'clock news on the radio included a 15-second report that three American servicemen had been killed in Afghanistan. That was it.

There wasn't time to mention that these three dead soldiers had mothers and fathers who will grieve for them the rest of their lives.

It also left out whether these young men had brothers, sisters, wives or girlfriends — and maybe children, too.

And it failed to ask why we were even in Afghanistan in the first place.

Edward J. Gutman, Baltimore