Death and dying in Afghanistan

One of the best opening sentences of a news story that I've read for a long time appeared in the Washington Post on 1 September. It was written by Dana Milbank: "On Saturday, millions watched as Ted Kennedy made his final trip to Arlington National Cemetery. With rather less attention, Arlington's soil opened again Monday to accept the remains of one of Kennedy's former aides, 40-year-old Bill Cahir." Milbank wrote that, as a result of the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, Cahir had joined the US Marines. He was shot dead in August in Afghanistan. His wife, pregnant with their twin daughters, is now his widow.

And talking of tragedy, here's another heartbreaking story. Because he was deeply shocked by those barbaric attacks that took place on "9/11", Pat Tillman walked away from a $3.6 million contract to play American football and joined the US Army in May 2002. He had a moral obligation to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban, he felt. Two years later, he died, aged 28, on a hillside in Afghanistan, killed by so-called "friendly fire".

The short life and terrible death of Pat Tillman are at the centre of a new book, Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, which will be published next Tuesday. Krakauer uses Tillman's letters, interviews with his wife and conversations with the soldiers who served beside him, to create a picture of this extraordinary person and provide the definitive account of his death.

While researching Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer was embedded with American and Afghan troops, and he recorded some video as they patrolled the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. On this day of remembering the 2,993 people who died eight years ago as a consequence of the evil plans made by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, it is a poignant reminder that we live in a world of savage conflict and sudden, violent death.