It's a beautiful bottle. Designed for display, not practical use.

It is a sphere, 7 centimeters in diameter. Ordinary, clear glass, but thick for its size. The base contours into a rectangular platform for stability. There are four small ridges, one in each corner, that lift the glass less than a millimeter off the surface.

Designed with care.

A narrow neck protrudes out of the top of the bottle, two centimeters high. It is plugged with a simple cork.

Two strips of transparent cellophane tape criss-cross from one side to the other over the top, ensuring the cork will not fall out.

They totally ruin the appearance of the whole thing. I suspect I will have to take them off eventually, and either glue the cork in, or risk it falling out and losing of some of the contents.

As much as I like the bottle, I bought it sight unseen.

It's not the bottle that I treasure.

It is full of sand. Black and grey sand, rough in texture and varied in size. Including at least two minute pieces of broken glass that I can see, each the same size as the larger sand grains. A few white particles that appear to be pieces of crustaceans.

Or bone.

If I can trust the vendor who sold this to me, and I have no reason not to, this is sand from Green Beach.

Green Beach, at the base of Mount Suribachi, on the island of Iwo Jima.

The beach where my father landed with the 5^th Marine Division, 56 years ago.

Over 120 cc of volcanic sand that United State Marines and Naval Corpsmen crawled through. Cried in. Bled in.

Died in.

Yes, I did peel back the tape and pull the cork out to smell it.

No scent at all. None. Too dry, I suppose. Disappointing , just the same.

A lot of diarists have weighed in with their opinions of what the American response should be to the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, many just shortly after the tragedy. I have kept my mouth shut.

My first, instantaneous response was that we should nuke the planet from the east border of Jordan to the Khyber Pass. And maybe on into Kashmir, just for good measure. My second thought was that whatever we do, most Americans will consider it insufficient.

I still believe that.

But I suspect we will find out in about a week's time.

Many have compared the terrorist assaults to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I have many objections to that comparison, probably the greatest being that most make it just because they recently saw the movie (we still haven't). Otherwise, they wouldn't even know where Pearl is, much less what happened there on that day in December.

But there are some valid comparisons between the two enemies involved in these attacks. Each follows a deviant form of a common, healthy belief system. Each sees death in the service of their goals as glorious and desirable. Each despises the West and its freedoms, and particularly its icon, the United States. Each will fight that icon to the death of the last man. Each set aside the normal rules of "civilized" warfare in the belief that its cause justifies any means.

Each regards its opponent as decadent and weak, expecting us to collapse under our own inadequacies, from our mixed and impure nature.

The Japanese bushido were wrong, as are al Qaeda.

Dawntreader gave a thoughtful analysis of several peaceful ways we could respond to these attacks, with the admission that none would have a truly satisfactory ending. She didn't mention that any forceful response will probably have undesirable consequences as well.

But these are not criminals that need to be captured, tried and sentenced. This is an organization dedicated to our destruction. An organization that will not bend from its purpose, and hopes only to accelerate its pogrom. An enemy that needs to be destroyed.

But at the cost of innocent civilians?

Yes, if that is where the enemy chooses to hide. And those deaths will be a result of their actions, not ours. I carry no guilt for being a citizen of the only nation to ever use atomic weapons on people. Truman made the right decision then, and in hindsight, it looks just as wise more than fifty years later.

I do not advocate the use of nuclear weapons here (or anywhere, for that matter). But all necessary force to eradicate this enemy who has attacked us.

Realizing that will put more American blood on foreign soil. Realizing it is an easy thing for me to say, as I am unlikely to serve.

I look at this bottle of sand on my desk now, and wonder.

Are there children here now, who will treasure a similar bottle of tan soil a half century in the future? Will they understand the cost? And the need?