On a humid Sunday morning, a soldier held his teenage daughter tighter then she could remember. Her father’s embrace was smothering; he took hold of her as if she was a part of his own body. A warm kiss on her cheek and a smooth wipe of her tears comforted her as her mother accepted her from her dad.

I think growing up in the shadow of 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan darkened our generation’s political outlook. At the precise moment when we came of age politically, 9/11 presented us with a vivid lesson of evil in the world and its potential to inflict harm on our soil. The Iraq war followed by casting doubt on the ability of our government to effectively respond to terrorism, to win, or at least end, a war and to tell us the truth.

Ah, the irony. Last week, I wrote a column calling for more debate on campus about the war in Afghanistan. The response: silence. No debate, no online comments, no e-mails, no op-ed submissions and no other apparent response on campus.

For several years, the situation in the Middle East has been one giant question mark for Americans. Why are certain groups in power? How are elections being corrupted? Why are we at war with Afghanistan and Iraq when a Saudi ordered the Sept. 11 attacks?

As we mark the eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, our country is embarking on a high-stakes debate about whether and how to continue waging this war.

To my knowledge, never before in American history has such an important and long-lasting war received so little public attention. It is true that we have had many substantial distractions—the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, our energy problems, the economic crisis, the health care debate—that all deserve our attention; yet, we should not have let this war fall so deeply out of our public consciousness.

With the Executive Order 9066, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the forced removal of Japanese Americans across the United States. While some had only weeks to prepare for the event and others had months, most spent years in relocation camps located in places like rural Utah, Arizona and Wyoming. But about 30 Japanese American students instead [...]