War & Peace Quote by Dave Reichert

Reichert’s line is a politician’s attempt to draw a hard boundary in a moment when boundaries blur: tragedy should not become a proxy battlefield. The phrasing is engineered for consensus. “I believe” signals moral posture rather than policy; it’s less an argument than a claim to decency. “Everyone can appreciate” quietly pressures dissenters into looking inhumane, making the statement both invitation and soft ultimatum.

The key move is the word “regardless.” Reichert doesn’t ask people to change their views on Iraq or Afghanistan; he asks them to quarantine those views from a family’s grief. That’s shrewd in a culture where the wars’ legitimacy, casualty counts, and media narratives became constant points of contention. By invoking “peace,” he frames public attention and protest as potential violations, nudging the audience toward civility and restraint without naming the culprits. It’s a rhetorical technique common to elected officials: condemn a behavior broadly enough that no ally feels indicted, but specifically enough that critics recognize the target.

The subtext is about ownership of mourning. In the post-9/11 era, fallen soldiers’ families were often pulled into symbolic roles: proof of sacrifice, evidence of failure, ammunition for either side. Reichert tries to return grief to the private sphere, not because politics disappears at a funeral, but because politicizing loss is a particularly efficient way to harden camps. The line’s power comes from its implied bargain: keep the dead out of the argument, and we might still be able to live together after the argument ends.