Two days ago some twit with a Sharpie marker defaced a small memorial sign dedicating part of a local bike trail to a fallen soldier, Dan Petithory. I have never understood how some people can conflate the service of a our military personnel with the policies handed down from their civilian leadership.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Daniel H. Petithory is a local hero, plain and simple. He died in a friendly fire incident when an American smart-bomb went off course while he was directing air strikes from the ground in the mountains of Afghanistan against the Taliban in December 2001.

It is hard to convey how this is perceived in small town, rural New England, where few are separated by more than two or three degrees from anyone else. The graffiti was discovered by Petithory's brother who rides the bicycle trail every day.

Here in the Berkshires we all know somebody who is deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Heck, my 6 year-old son's best buddy is over and playing for the day. His dad is somewhere in Baghdad with the Massachusetts Guard as we speak. (We try and give his mom a break whenever we can.)

I am friends with people who are currently serving who believe that Bush, Rumsfeld and the gang are destroying the military. Then there are those who think my oppositional columns in the local paper are tantamount to treason. However, we all live, play, shop and commune together in this little corner of the world. Magnetic yellow ribbons as well as peace symbols are visible in almost every parking lot, from Wal-mart to the natural food co-op.

Perhaps this corner of New England is a microcosm of America that people should take notice of. Most of those living insulated in both the reddest of the red and bluest of the blue parts of our country probably do not experience what we see here everyday.

I suspect that the memorial vandal is a local over-idealistic kid who has never experienced loss personally. At least I hope it is. If it is an adult, my feelings of disgust will quickly turn to anger. This isn't about politics. It is about community.