Matt mentioned this song in a comment on yesterday’s post, which prompted me to go find it in it’s entirety.

The song is called “Dress Blues” by Jason Isbell (Drive-By Truckers). The song is about Matthew Conley, a marine from Isbell’s hometown of Greenhill, Alabama, who died in Iraq.

I thought it was a powerful song, and did a search on Matthew Conley. One of the first links that came up was “Stories for Catherine“, an article from ESPN the Magazine about Conley and his family. It’s a very good article and I would recommend reading it.

Conley was married and his wife was back home in Alabama, eight months pregnant with their first child. In February of 2006, about two weeks before his tour would be over and he would return home just in time for the birth of his daughter, Conley was the victim of a roadside bomb. He would never meet his daughter.

Yesterday was the first time I recall hearing about Matthew Conley, but I’ve thought about his story a lot since hearing this song yesterday afternoon, and reading about him and his family last night. It’s one of those stories that bothers you and is hard to stop thinking about because it’s a sad story, but more so because it’s seemingly an unnecessary one. As one who believes that the war in Iraq was a huge error, it breaks my heart to see stores like this of the lives it has destroyed.

Matthew Conley’s is just one story. There are many, many more.

Far too many more.