Long, triggery post, mostly aimed at young Americans, but I'd appreciate your all reading it.

Where were you on this day in 1983? I was at Roots & Growth, the hippie culture house at Tufts, making 1000 origami cranes for the upcoming peace festival. No cell phones. No email. No CNN.

As a result, I didn't find out till late that night. My eldest sister, in her grief, had had to spend the day trying to reach me, to tell me that terrorists had blown up the Beirut embassy, and "they couldn't find daddy" and that the embassy had told mom that "there was very little hope" that he could still be alive.

My dad, a Quaker, a pacifist, was one of the 60-some odd people, 17 Americans, killed by the first suicide carbombing of any American embassy. In fact, they thought the truck had been detonated by remote control, at first.

I didn't get the postcard that said he'd gotten there ("Beirut is lovely") till after they found his body, which was the next day, my time. That was still the longest night of my life. The following week, waiting for Mom to get back from Thailand (she hadn't finished packing out their prior post), was also interminable. I have never really been right in the head since.

And what was the US government's response? Not a thing, that I recall, while they slaughtered Americans wholesale overseas throughout the eighties and nineties.   Then came 9/11, and suddenly, the rest of America found out what my family had known for decades – there are people out there who will die to kill us. It's worth it, to them. And now what was the government's response? Oh, we can't let them kill us, so let's go kill them, to teach them not to kill us.

How's that working out for you, America?

Daddy wasn't in the military. He didn't volunteer to go into a danger zone. The US government had dropped the embassy barricades, ***taken everybody off danger pay*** and restaffed the embassy with non-essentials and other civilians, just that week. We had been assured, in so many words, by the government, that he'd be safe. We were lied to.

You are also being lied to.   War is not glorious. Killing people over there will not teach them not to kill us over here. Do not volunteer for this war, I beg you. Not In My Name.