Commentary Pop, the uncle who raised me, carried with him for more than half a century a haunting memory from his time aboard the aircraft carrier Essex in World War II. Anti-aircraft fire had killed a turret gunner during a sortie. Pop, whose job it was to repair and prepare planes for the next mission, went up to inspect the plane as soon as it landed. What he encountered was a gruesome sight: the decapitated body of the turret gunner in a blood-soaked turret. The captain of the Essex dispatched the ship’s chaplain to ask Pop if the plane could be patched up enough to fly again. Pop’s reply to the captain, via the chaplain/messenger, was, “Yes, but with all this blood in the tropical heat, it will stink to high heaven. I recommend we bury this man in the plane in which he had given his life for his …