Joey Milledge has a plush replica of his late father Army Sgt. Joseph B. Milledge at his home in Gig Harbor, Washington. “I like to sleep with it because it gives me good memories of my dad and sometimesÉ and good dreams, too,” he said.

Touched base with my old mucker Erika Schultz this week. She’s great, her colleagues are great, The Seattle Times is great. It’s a paper that allows its photographers to dive into projects deep. All my buds who shoot at the Times work super hard. It’s not easy, but it can be rewarding. Usually, it’s important.

I tacked on a question to my email to Erika about the photo she’s made recently and most proud of. Erika replied:

An image from a video and photo project on two local woman (and their sons) who lost their husbands in the Iraq War. The women — who were similar ages as me — thought it was important to share their stories on Memorial Day to remind the public of the human cost and sacrifice of war, and keep the memory alive of their husbands for their children.

I was listening to a radio program round up of the latest announcements by politicians for the 2016 Democratic ticket. One of candidates is Lincoln Chafee. He was a Republican U.S. Senator (1999-2007) and later a Governor of Rhode Island (2011-2015) but as an Independent. Well now he wants to challenge Hillary.

Chafee’s distinguishing feature is that he was the only Republican Senator to vote against authorising the use of force in Iraq. Will it matter? Probably not; the radio commentators suggested past wars aren’t of any importance to most Americans, now. Sad.

It’s easy to forget that moving on and away is difficult-to-impossible for some.

Here’s the video. put together by Corinne Chin and Lauren Frohne.

vid

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Erika is Wyoming born, a  staff photographer. Co-founder . board member .