Nearly four years ago, 31-year-old Marine Capt. Aaron J. Contreras became the first resident of Southwest County to give his life in the Iraq War.

The Temecula resident, who was born on the Fourth of July, was killed on March 30, 2003, when his helicopter crashed on takeoff at a forward base in southern Iraq. At the time, reports said it was not clear if the crash was the result of enemy fire.

It doesn't much matter. Dead is dead, whether by enemy fire or a mechanical problem.

Last week, another Temecula resident, Brian Freeman, also 31, and a captain in the Army Reserve, became the latest casualty among Southwest County residents.

There is no doubt as to the cause of his death. It came during a militia attack on a meeting at provincial headquarters in Karbala.

The reason for the meeting? They were planning security for Shiite pilgrims.

When Contreras was killed, the public will to the fight was far greater than that which exists as Freeman's family prepares to bury their son/husband/father.

Some people blame the lack of progress in the war for its increasing unpopularity. Others point to the media and liberal politicians.

There is enough blame to go around.

Although the media and the politicians must shoulder much of the responsibility for steeling our enemies' resolve to persist until we turn tail, we do ourselves no favor in pursuing this misguided notion of modern warfare.

The two-headed enemy of success is the lack of secrecy surrounding operations and the requirement to fight a politically correct war.

In the first instance, there is this need to broadcast our punches as if we believe that by doing so we will force surrender. Silly us.

As we listen to the plans for our strategy, so does the enemy, all the while preparing countermeasures. As we bury our dead, the enemy sits satisfied that yet again we have cut our own throats.

In the second instance, we increasingly seem to be of the mind that we can win this war without spilling too much blood, and particularly without spilling too much civilian blood.

"OK, go over there and win, just try not to hurt anyone" is the message we send our commanders and troops again and again.

Whatever happened to kick butt first and tell later? Is there some necessity to float trial balloons on operations to make sure politicians don't object? How about we just let our commanders do their job with no interference from us amateurs?

Lt. Col. Kilgore ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning") would find no place in this war. Even during the Vietnam War, military men of his ilk were becoming marginalized.

It seems that we no longer have the stomach to do what is necessary to win.

As much as we Southerners like to disparage Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman for his "scorched earth" march to Atlanta, it sent a clear message. "This is war. War is not pretty. We are going to make you not pretty."

Those are not the words of this outstanding statistician who has been called the "first modern general," but they represent his message.

And they represent the message we need to send.

"You want to play nice, we'll play nice. You want to play bad, shame on you because we are going to march over you leaving every resister and everyone who shelters a resister standing in line to meet the 72 virgins."

No, instead we spend too much time worrying about collateral damage because killing too many people might upset someone.

It would be nice if we could use surgical strikes to accomplish our goals, but lacking that we need to take a page from Sherman's playbook and light the torches.

Perhaps if we'd done that as soon as the resistance began, you wouldn't be reading this column.

And we wouldn't be burying Capt. Freeman.

Phil Strickland is a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.