Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, “I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?

If Heaven is willing to sing to us, it is little to ask that we be ready to listen.

Illusions are the truths we live by until we know better.

While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.

Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting.

On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.