Each year has 365 days , and wish you 365 beautiful dreams come true.

Right-on, John - to both the "Anonymous" responder as well as the contractor and Army personnel in charge of these communications. The point of the article was a gross error in communications, but "Anonymous" obviously is not one to admit a mistake or take the heat for his/her actions so has to divert attention to "the real issue".

In the "Dear John Doe" letter a bunch of somebodys in the Army and contractor offices did not take the job seriously enough by addressing military families as if they and their dead loved ones were nobodys...

I certainly hope the contractor is barred from further contracts with the Army and there is loss of rank by those in the military in charge of this debacle. However, my own experiences working with a DOD contractor as well as being a military wife (of an officer) and mother (of a seriously combat wounded NC0) lead me to believe the lowest ranking members of the contract organization will likely bear the brunt of the punishment and the contractor executives will skate. Hopefully, the Army will target EVERYONE involved, not just the poor lance corporal.

Why isn't the contractor named?

If we are to keep our eyes on the ball here in this communications blog, then my focus is on the communications aspect, which is to say that when I do a form letter, I have learned to make the assumption that my draft could end up as-is in print. That said, instead of putting things like "FINAL" or "(Name)" in final drafts or templates, I write it as though it could look intentional if mistakenly printed. In this case, I would have used the term "Dear loved ones of an American hero:"

This may sound sappy to some, including a few recipients, but it should not offend them and as I mentioned, its intention would be to serve only as a placeholder, but not an embarrassing one. I do this kind of thing all the time and a couple of times, the worst-case scenario did happen - but still crisis was prevented.

As for the need for the letters to go out. The U.S. has an army and regardless of the reasons they are put in harm's way, they do go, and they sacrifice and they will under administrations of all political stripes, and those administrations will make good decisions and mistakes. But these letters should honor that sacrifice. I'd call that keeping the eye on the ball.

And I thought writing "pubic" when you meant "public" was embarrassing. (I actually did that once in an op-ed written for a high level elected. A sharp-eyed editor saved my bacon on that one -grin-.)

While it doesn't diminish the pain of losing these servicemen and women, let's do note that they weren't "civilians," as Pat states.

And most of those fighting the war recognize its importance to our security.

As in any war -- or anything in life -- there have been tragic, costly mistakes. The world is a tough and dangerous place. It would be wonderful if everyone out there "played nice," but they don't. So, let's be glad our servicemembers have honorably fought the aggression that was in Iraq well before we were.

Typical of a REMF pogue.

Sometimes, in my 30-year career, it's happened that people have blamed me for the miscommunication of their mistakes - to make the miscommunication a lightning rod for the mistake.

What I mean by that is that, although of course it's offensive that these letters went out, let's keep our eye on the ball here. Those letters should never have had a reason for going out.

The real FUBAR is the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice agression in Iraq that led to these unnecessary deaths of young civilians and the agony pointlessly inflicted on their families.

Leave it to HR ...