RESOLVING TO BREAK SILENCE ABOUT WAR.

Byline: BEN HAAZ Local View

GROWING up in Philadelphia, my family spent New Year's Day hiking through the woods. The frozen air, dead trees and white earth reinforced the year's conclusion. When my parents asked me to think about the past year and set goals for the coming one.

This year, I spent New Year's Day flying back to my new home of Los Angeles. I boarded the plane without wandering through woods, so I spent the flight contemplating the past year and making my resolutions. Before our descent, the pilot's weary voice interrupted our thoughts and asked with a solemn yet soothing tone that we remain seated after the landing while a Marine carries out his mission.

Our physical descent paralleled my emotional one. I wondered if he could he be embarking on an operation in Iraq? Or, returning from one?

Upon arriving at our gate the plane was quickly surrounded by police cars. A passenger asked a stewardess, ``Who is the soldier escorting?''

``He's taking a fallen soldier home -- with honor,'' the stewardess stressed. Without hesitation the passenger replied, ``Of course.''

The speed of her response struck me. We remembered that our country was at war, and that our resolutions should focus on peace instead of personal progress. We sat on the plane as Marines walked a weeping family toward the coffin.

They circled the plane and took position as our flag fell over the soldier's final resting place. The officers stood in parallel, single-file lines on opposite sides of the coffin. We watched with the stillness of their salute.

Eventually, the stewardess asked us to deplane and promised that we'd have a view from the terminal. She didn't know that nearly 100 travelers had congregated along the windows facing the procession. Everyone stood in silence.

Somehow, even the children understood the circumstances. A soldier was dead, but the coffin, flag, and family reminded us that we'd lost a part of ourselves.

This silence of this scene revealed something new, and I came to understand my flight as I see our country.

Our plane's walls separated the passengers from the world. Despite our proximity, we were strangers. The plane was decorated with the word ``American.'' Our anonymous captain sporadically provided useless information, until he casually mentioned the Marine's mission. Afraid to elaborate, a stewardess had to detail his disturbing secret.

We quietly complied.

My role frustrated me, but not as much as my silence. How could this violence be so close, and go mute? When will we ask what people are dying for instead of silently honoring their deaths?

As the stakes of our silence rise, so do our unique and fleeting opportunities to change personally, socially, and globally. We no longer have an opportunity, rather an obligation. Whisking over the clouds that gently coated our country I remembered the snowy woods I trekked as a child. It was having dreams that precipitated their actuality. This year I resolve to end my complacency and silence.

Sadly, it was someone's death that motivated my humanity.