[Author's Note: The following is an extract of The NYT columnist's Maureen Dowd's fascinating oped piece on what motivates American heroes and stirred Colin Powell to speak out...]
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/opinion/22dowd.html?hp
Article Synopsis: "Colin Powell had been bugged by many things in his party’s campaign this fall...But what sent him over the edge and made him realize he had to speak out was when he opened his New Yorker three weeks ago and saw a picture of a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her son, a 20-year-old soldier who had been killed in Iraq. On the headstone were engraved his name, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, his awards — the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star — and a crescent and a star to denote his Islamic faith.Khan was an all-American kid. A 2005 graduate of Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin, N.J., he loved the Dallas Cowboys and playing video games with his 12-year-old stepsister, Aliya." Maureen Dowd, The NYT, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
