Sometimes photographers capture the whole story and reporters just fill out the rest of the page.
News Journal (Del.) photographer Scott Nathan did that Sunday in this story about two dozen members of the Delaware Air National Guard who shipped out on Father's Day. The expressions on the faces of Maj. Joe Berti and his son tell everything their is to say about fathers, families, duty and war.
But there is more to the story. Maj. Berti and his fellow guardsmen shipped out for 60 days of active duty in "Southwest Asia" — i.e., somewhere in Afghanistan, where they will "operate from a secret base shared by several Guard units."
No mission is more important than the continuing hunt in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden, the members of his al-Qaida terror network and the leadership of the former Taliban regime that supported him. Yet it's not an extremely large engagement — the Associated Press reports that only about 20,000 American troops are currently serving in that part of "Southwest Asia," along with 6,000 NATO peacekeepers.
Isn't the mighty U.S. military capable of handling a deployment of this size without needing to call up members of the Delaware Air National Guard to active duty?
The answer, of course, is that it would be — except that at the same time this essential battle in the war on terror is being waged in Afghanistan, America's leaders decided to invade and occupy another, unrelated country in Southwest Asia. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has stretched America's military so thin that we do not have enough troops available to continue the work in Afghanistan without calling on Maj. Berti and the other members of the 166th Airlift Wing.
The war of choice in Iraq has undermined and undermanned the war of self-defense in Afghanistan. That's why Joey Berti of Browns Mills, N.J., won't see his dad for at least 60 days.
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