JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune
More that just a 15-month-old boy was up in the air when Marine Staff Sgt. Jeff Vaughn played with his son Bradley before boarding the amphibious assualt ship Belleau Wood and heading to Iraq in May.
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This was a year of uncommon agitation, of red states and blue states, of Murphy and Frye, of ongoing war in a distant land. People were divided and anxious, but at least they cared.
A year ago, it was images of victims that lingered on the page and in the mind. Photos of homes ravaged by fire. Of a dead soldier's helmet propped on a rifle in the desert.
In 2004, the pictures that resonated are not of people who had things happen to them, but of people who made things happen. Whether it was athletes chasing glory in Athens, or mourners passing silently by a flag-draped coffin, or throngs welcoming a new ballpark downtown, there wasn't any room in the frame for indifference.
Now a new year beckons, and the traditional temptation is to think of slates being wiped clean. But we know better. It's rarely that easy. People are still divided and anxious, not so united in these United States, and uncertain about a great many things.
Except this: They care.
– JOHN WILKENS
