It’s never a very good idea, we believe, to become too technologically proficient at war.

While we quickly agree that high tech can reduce casualties and minimize what’s known as collateral damage – innocent civilians who had the bad fortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – seeing war through a video-game lens is a dangerous pursuit.

That’s because technology, because of its very nature, is dehumanizing.

Take Civil War Gen. William T. Sherman, for example. Credited with saying “War is hell,” no one knew more about war than Sherman.

In letters following the conflict, Sherman wrote, “I am sick and tired of fighting – its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers … tis only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

All wars and conflicts considered, about 1,250,000 Americans have died for their country since Washington was at Valley Forge.

It remains to be seen how many more will die before all is said and done.

Today, we honor and remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, whether in the steaming jungles of Vietnam, the volcanic sands of Iwo Jima or the trenches of World War I’s Western Front.

Sherman got it right. War is little more than killing. All of us should look forward to a time when nations can find better ways to settle their differences than sacrificing their citizens.